


Glamourous

by Vitellia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Humor, Post-Canon, romcom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 30,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27697565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitellia/pseuds/Vitellia
Summary: Extensively published in two fields, Hermione Granger has two teenage children she loves, and a husband she's not so sure about. Officially dead, Severus Snape is enjoying tacos, tequila, and Thestral rodeos in west Texas. Rehabilitated and reformed, Lucius Malfoy manages mischief for his friends when they prove incapable of managing it themselves. What could go wrong?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 362
Kudos: 422
Collections: Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members





	1. Chapter 1

“Tosser,” Hermione mutters.

Ron laughs. “It’s Lockhart all over again.”

She ignores her husband—also being a bit of a tosser, at the moment—as her quill slashes across a sixth year Potions essay. Not a Charms essay, which is the only kind she ought to be marking, but that idiot Cresswell is out cold in the hospital wing and she’s the only one on staff competent to mark NEWT-level Potions work.

Ron grabs a handful of crisps from a bowl and puts them in his mouth. He finishes chewing—having learned that lesson years ago—and says, “You wouldn’t think a tough old bird like Minerva would’ve been taken in by a pretty face at her age.” He eats another crisp and gives Hermione a mischievous smile. “But I guess birds _will_ be birds.”

“Yes, Ron,” she says with a flick of her left hand, which conjures a flock of tiny yellow birds even as her right continues to draw blood-red ink from the essay. “Birds will be birds.”

Ron laughs and holds out a finger. “Nice birdie?” One of the birds perches on the extended finger and Ron feeds it a crisp. 

Hermione puts the parchment on the finished pile and pulls the last of them in front of her. She’s saved this one to cheer herself up. Hugo’s Charms essays are consistently outstanding, and she’s hoping the same will hold true for his Potions work. She glances at Ron feeding the birds, which are a very old joke between them now, and her way of gently warning him when he should back off from his teasing. When he feeds them, it means he will, and it hasn’t spoiled his good mood.

Their son doesn’t disappoint, and soon Hermione is putting Hugo’s parchment with its red O on top of the stack of marked essays.

She sits down on the sofa next to Ron, making up her mind to ignore the crack about birds and the three hundred fifty-nine thousandth joke in the last twenty-odd years about her adolescent crush on Lockhart. She reaches for the crisps. “Honestly. Letting Neville Longbottom’s son partner with George Weasley’s daughter. We all warned him. About _both_ of them.” She eats a crisp, and drinks the last of Ron’s beer. “Dunderhead.”

Ron makes a face. “It reminds me of Snape when you say that. Which you do entirely too often for comfort.”

“Because there are entirely too many dunderheads in the world. And if Snape were teaching the little monsters instead of Cresswell, I wouldn’t have to be teaching my own classes and half of someone else’s.”

“If Snape was still here, you wouldn’t be teaching at all.”

Hermione’s hand stops halfway to the crisps. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mione, it was bad enough living here with him for six years when I was a student. I’d have to socialize with the git if he was your colleague.”

“Can we not speak ill of the dead, please, Ronald?”

“You speak ill of Dumbledore all the time, _Hermione_ ,” he replies, emphasizing her full name to indicate annoyance at her use of his.

She ignores the barb about Dumbledore. They’ve been down that road too many times, and she has no desire to go there again tonight. “The man was a spy, Ron. He had to act that way in front of a castle full of Death Eaters’ children.”

“I know. So you and Harry keep saying. Ad nauseam.”

Hermione smiles. “I love it when you get your Latin declensions right, Mr. Weasley.”

He returns her smile, more than a little wolfishly. “What’s my reward, Professor?”

She smiles and reaches out to tuck a stray lock of red-gold hair behind his ear, determined to let it go, to _play nice_ as Ron likes to say, but she can’t quite manage, and her smile fades. “That depends.”

“On what?”

She doesn’t have to say it. She can still salvage what’s left of the evening. But of course she doesn’t. “It depends on what you meant by, I wouldn’t be teaching if Snape were here.”

Ron Summons another beer and looks at it, not her. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“Because it sounded as though you meant you wouldn’t _allow_ me to.”

He doesn’t say anything, just takes a long pull on his beer.

“ _Is_ that what you meant?” she presses. Because she can’t help herself.

“Merlin’s great hairy ballsack, woman,” he explodes at last. “Do you _have_ to do this? Do you?”

She doesn’t ask what _this_ is, because she knows. _This_ is spoil the moment by being her normal, irritating, pedantic, self-righteous self. The birds were okay. The birds were warning him without using words, warning him in a cute, flirty way that he doesn’t mind. Words, he minds the hell out of.

“Do you?” he repeats when she doesn’t answer.

She won’t answer. Won’t give him more _words_ to throw back in her face, accuse her of _talking everything to death_.

“You do,” he answers his own question. “Every. Fucking. Time.”

She does. He says so often enough. But really, she doesn’t. She’s so careful not to, most of the time. She knows how much he hates it, and she watches herself, but tonight she’s tired, after teaching her own classes and two of Cresswell’s, marking her essays and his, so her guard is down. She wants to tell him how hard she tries, how she succeeds most of the time, swallows the hated, excessive words, but he doesn’t notice. He only notices when she fails, when she’s tired or not paying attention and they slip out to annoy him.

Feeling the tears pricking the backs of her eyes, she opens her eyes wider and concentrates on not blinking so the tears won’t fall. Tears are cheating, Ron says. It isn’t fair when she does it.

He’s at the door, cloak in hand, before she finds her voice. But she doesn’t use it. It will only make things worse. More words from the bossy, know-it-all _bird_ he married, who can’t just be like other birds, be a good sport, flirt and act like she’s interested when they watch the kids play Quidditch. Who can’t make a home cooked meal once in a while. Who wouldn’t have the third child he wanted. Whose only son is a swotty Ravenclaw who didn’t make the Quidditch team.

She blinks and one of the tears escapes to track down her cheek. She swipes it away angrily. She only knows three ways to deal with this feeling. She can have a good cry, ideally aided by a drink or two. She can finish the argument with Ron until it escalates into rage-fueled make-up sex that’s just about the only halfway decent sex they have these days. Or she can duel someone she’s evenly matched with. She’s not going to cry, and she’s not going to send Ron a let’s-have-hate-sex Patronus, so that means beating the crap out of her Defense Against the Dark Arts colleague. 

If she’s lucky, that is. Because sometimes he’s lucky, and she’s the one who ends up covered in dittany and bruise paste. Either way, it’s better than crying.

She walks to the fireplace, tosses some Floo powder in, and calls, “Malfoy, you up for getting your arse kicked?”


	2. Chapter 2

When Hermione gets to the defense classroom, he’s waiting for her, wand held loose in his right hand, faded Dark Mark on display. She’s _almost_ used to seeing him this way, in tracksuit bottoms and a short-sleeved gray t-shirt that covers some of the best abs in the castle, Quidditch team members included. His shoulder-length platinum hair is tied back in case she tries any of her fight-like-a-Muggle nonsense.

“What’s the occasion?” he greets her.

She doesn’t say the occasion is that her husband is a first-class wanker. He knows that already. Instead, she casts a silent, wandless Protego and a simultaneous stunner that nearly cracks his shield in two.

“So, it’s like that, is it?” he laughs softly.

“Shut up and fight, Lucius.”

In lieu of an answer, he knocks her on her arse without a word and only the slightest twitch of his wand.

“That’s better,” she says, rolling to the left just in time to miss a stinging hex that would have really hurt, and firing off a slicing hex that glances off his shoulder and leaves a slowly spreading red stain on his shirt.

Twenty minutes later, they both look rather the worse for wear, but each still holds a wand. When he raises an eyebrow, she nods, and they sink down next to each other and lean against the wall. They’re both breathing hard. She lifts her wand but he stills her hand.

“Ladies first,” he says, and heals each of her cuts and scrapes in turn. After she returns the favor, he opens a jar of bruise paste and they each attend to their own bruises. When she starts to close the lid he smirks, “You have one more, I think?”

“You are a vile and depraved man, Lucius Malfoy,” she says, but she’s smiling.

He gives her a look so innocent it’s practically angelic. “I am merely trying to be helpful, my dear.”

Her expression turns serious. “And you have been. I needed this.”

“Clearly.”

“Please tell Cissy I’m sorry for dragging you away.”

He makes an elegant _think nothing of it_ gesture, and she marvels that he can do the Pureblood Gentleman thing almost as well in a ripped t-shirt as he used to in a frock coat and that ridiculous walking stick. The cane was cast aside years ago along with the blood purity nonsense and about half a foot of hair, but he still dresses beautifully, at least when he isn’t dueling unhappily married colleagues instead of enjoying an after-dinner Armagnac.

Ron would be livid if he knew where she was right now, of course. He knows she duels Lucius from time to time in order to keep her skills sharp, and knows better than to try telling her not to, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

She conjures two glasses, fills them with an Aguamenti, and hands one to Lucius. He clinks his glass against hers with that mocking smile she used to find smug and insufferable, and drinks.

“Is there anything I can do, Hermione?” he asks. “Besides allowing you to work out your frustrations by brutalizing an old man, of course.”

“Old man,” she scoffs. Magical DNA is the most marvelous thing. She’s just past forty and he’s in his early sixties, but as witch and wizard they’re both still in their prime. Her parents, in their seventies, seem—and in terms of Muggle actuarial tables, are—so much older. She could still have more children, if she wanted to. As Ron wants her to.

Lucius looks at her seriously. “I mean it, you know. I owe you so much.”

She shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

He puts a finger under her chin and turns her face toward him. “Always.”

 _Always_. That word…she can still hear Snape’s voice, hoarse and breaking, in the Pensieve memories. She searches Lucius’s eyes, but he doesn’t know. He didn’t see the memories. To him, the word means nothing.

“They’d have sent me back to Azkaban,” Lucius says. “Cissy and Draco might have been all right, but not me. Not without the rehabilitation program you pushed for. Not Potter. Not anyone else. _You_.”

“Do-gooder nonsense, you called it at the time,” Hermione says, keeping her tone light. _Adopt-a-Death-Eater_ , she remembers Ron mocking. _As though they’re stray Kneazles_.

“At the time, I thought it was,” Lucius admits. “I was afraid it might save my life only to get me the Kiss, which would have been so much worse.”

She nods.

“But you convinced them. And convinced McGonagall to let me do my public service here, being an example of What Not To Do for potentially evil young Slytherins.”

“It’s been a long time since Minerva thought that way about your House.”

“It is,” he agrees. “But she did then. And I really wonder whether any of them would have come around if not for you.”

She wonders, too. Witches and wizards are a vindictive lot, she’s learned.


	3. Chapter 3

For the first thirty-eight years of his life, Severus thought the primary dividing line between people was magical versus Muggle. Either that or male versus female. He went back and forth about that, depending on circumstance. 

Then he came to Texas. Now, he’s pretty sure it’s British versus American. Or possibly Texans versus everyone else. 

When he first arrived here, Severus tried not to become too American, then gave up. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Rome, Texas, that is. Not Rhome, the microscopic Muggle town near Dallas-Fort Worth, but Rome, the wizarding community on the outskirts of Amarillo. 

Severus has long since given up wondering why Americans, Muggle and magical alike, give names like Memphis, Carthage, Athens, and Syracuse to their ridiculous concatenations of strip malls and Dairy Queens. But he’s not one of those Brits who turns up his prodigious nose at everything American on principle, at least not anymore. There’s a lot he’s come to like about the U.S., and about Texas in particular. 

First, there’s the sun. Once he fine-tuned his sun protection charms to let in just the right amount of UV rays, and got used to wearing a hat and sunglasses, he found he quite liked the heat and blinding light. Eventually, he even traded the cooling charms for short sleeves. No one here pays the slightest attention to the faded gray tattoo on his left arm.

Second, there is Mexican food. While it is true that you can’t get a decent curry in Amarillo, this is unquestionably a price worth paying for enchiladas, burritos, fajitas, and guacamole. How did he _live_ all those years without Tex-Mex and margaritas? The mind boggles.

Third, there are the women. If he’d had any idea what an unfair advantage a British accent gave a bloke in America, he’d have moved here straight after Hogwarts, and the Dark Lord be damned. Back home, what limited success he had with women stemmed mainly from being able to use his voice—easily his most attractive feature—effectively. But here, with the voice _and_ the accent?

“It’s like shakin’ a pussy tree,” Buddy laughed the first time he dragged Severus to a bar to act as his wing man. Buddy—no, that isn’t his given name, but yes, that’s actually what people call him—was the first friend Severus made in Rome, and is still his closest friend here.

Finally, there is rodeo. Wizarding rodeo is to the Muggle variety what Quidditch is to football, or what the Yanks call soccer, American football being something even wizards follow obsessively here. The Dallas Cowboys, apparently, are one of the things that transcend the Muggle-magical divide in the Lone Star state.

In a wizarding rodeo, there are events with ordinary horses and bulls, but those are just the warm-ups, for the youngest, least experienced competitors. The main events involve Thestrals—he is told that the events are just as thrilling, though in a different way, to spectators who cannot see the animals—and a ferocious sort of magical bovine that would delight Hagrid. Buddy raises both these magical bulls and Thestrals on his ranch.

Severus would not have thought he’d enjoy riding a Thestral, but _when in Rome_ , so he tried it, and ended up quite enjoying it. Now, he rides often, though he hasn’t let Buddy talk him into entering a rodeo. Yet.

Now, he reins the Thestral and glides to a smooth descent about a quarter of a mile from the pasture. He likes to finish a ride on the ground, let the animal cool down a bit after expending all that energy in flight. He waves to Buddy as he passes the training paddock where a young Thestral colt is thrashing and rearing and baring his teeth.

After seeing to his own animal and washing up, Severus Apparates to Casa Escobar for takeaway, then back to his house, where the scent of carnitas is filling the kitchen even before he gets the container open.

He’s just finishing his dinner when the owl arrives, a great brown monstrosity bearing a scroll addressed to Severus Snape. He thought about living under a false name when he moved here, but decided that if anyone really wanted to find him, they probably could anyway. The truth is, he didn’t think anyone would come looking for him, and he was right. They didn’t.

The Malfoys were the only ones who knew he survived, and they honored his wishes by insisting to anyone who asked that he must indeed have died because they never heard from him after the war, and they certainly would have had he lived.

Lucius came to visit once, and was appalled by the rodeos, the Mexican food, and the sight of Severus in jeans and cowboy boots. “Are you a savage?” Lucius demanded. Severus just shrugged and finished his friend’s burrito as well as his own, and recommended the rib-eye, medium rare, which was much more to Lucius’s taste. He decided that Lucius would probably not enjoy the bar with the free two-step lessons, and would never let him hear the end of it if he learned that Severus had become quite good at that particular dance.

The one visit to Rome, Texas, was more than enough for Lucius, but they correspond regularly, and Lucius keeps him up-to-date on the gossip. Severus is aware that his own letters are considerably less interesting. All he does is brew bruise paste and contraceptives and hangover remedy to pay the bills, do some experimental brewing and write articles on theory—under a pseudonym, of course—to keep his mind active, and ride Buddy’s Thestrals for exercise and relaxation.

Occasionally, when the need arises, he Apparates to Amarillo and picks up a woman at a bar. Sometimes the association lasts only for one evening, other times for several weeks or months, and once for nearly two years. He did not appreciate having the term _boyfriend_ applied to him, but it was gratifying to know that he was, in fact, capable of having a normal, non-dysfunctional relationship.

When he’s in the mood for a good spicy curry or a woman who’s a little more… _cosmopolitan_ than the ladies of Amarillo, he heads to Austin. Once, he went on holiday to New York City, but the first woman he met there was rather _too cosmopolitan_ , and asked him to do things that...well, he really hadn’t thought anything could shock him after late ’70s Death Eater revels, but clearly he was wrong. 

Lucius enjoyed _that_ letter very much. 

He reads Lucius’s latest letter while the owl finishes the last of the tortillas. Lucius would be appalled to know what his owl is eating.

When he gets to the last part, which contains a question, his breathing slows, and he rereads it several times. 

His initial impulse is to scrawl _Fuck, no!_ across the bottom of the page, but something stays his hand. He thinks about it. He’s grown comfortable in his life here. He’s happy, or the closest thing he ever has been to happy. Content, anyway. But he’s also, if he’s being honest, a little bored. And _more_ than a little curious. 

So, instead of the words he planned to write, he writes two other words at the bottom of the letter: _Why not?_


	4. Chapter 4

Padma Patil smiles as Hermione passes her desk. Madam Pince retired only last year, so Hermione still isn’t quite used to seeing her beautiful classmate sitting there instead of the old harridan who used to shoo her out of the restricted section. Which is where Hermione is headed now, specifically to the part of the restricted section that houses the collection Snape left to the school—with a special provision that she, Hermione, catalogue the collection, if she wished, and that she always have access to it.

She would anyway now, of course, since she teaches at the school, but Snape didn’t know what her career plans were. She was shocked—as well as deeply grateful, and proud—that he trusted her to catalogue his library, and wanted her to have perpetual access to it.

Why? she wondered at the time. He always seemed so contemptuous of her, the insufferable know-it-all waving her hand in the air, desperate for approval, hemorrhaging endless words onto parchment in a futile effort to impress him. That’s one thing Ron and Snape had in common, as it happened—utter contempt for Hermione Granger’s endless effluvia of words.

And yet Ron married her, and Snape left her access to his books.

She finds the book she’s looking for and takes it to the table she always uses. Her table. There are only two in the restricted section, and Lucius uses the other one. She almost never sees anyone else back here.

She opens the book at the page where she left a slip of paper last time. Ridiculously Muggle way to mark one’s place, Lucius always teases. But it’s habit, and so she continues. There, in the margins, Snape’s spiky handwriting slithers down the page, his annotations a combination of brilliance and wit that occasionally makes her laugh out loud. Not often, but often enough that she puts up a Silencing charm whenever she reads them. Padma is no Madam Pince, but she’s still a librarian.

Her quill slides across the parchment, words pouring onto the page, words she’ll publish under a pseudonym, her co-author a dead man. 

She publishes under her own name—or, rather, her husband’s, H. G. Weasley—in the Charms journals, but in the Potions journals she’s G. H. Jenner, known to her editors as Georgia Herman Jenner. She supposes it’s rather awful to take a card from Voldemort’s deck and use an anagram of her name— _her_ name, Hermione Jean Granger—as a nom de plume, but she doesn’t suppose her former professor would want either the Granger or gods forbid the Weasley name under the _S. Snape, Posthumous_ on the series of papers they’ve co-authored over the years.

That’s how she thinks of it. Co-authoring. Collaborating. Working together, the only way an irritating swot like her would ever be able to work with Severus Snape. Though he was a bit of a swot himself, she reflects, a smile playing about her lips as she looks at his marginalia, the endless streams of words that flowed from his quill onto the white space of these pages over the years. 

The silent vibration of her timer charm alerts her that it’s time to head for the pitch. She returns the book to its shelf—Muggle bookmark in place—and puts the unfinished journal article back in her bag, a sleek black leather one with the same undetectable extension charm she’s put on all her bags over the years. She retrieves from it her cloak, scarf, and gloves on the way to the main entrance, and puts them on before following the students out into the cold. 

Her scarf is black today. With Gryffindor playing Ravenclaw, there is really no good way to handle the optics. Rose is a Seeker on the Gryffindor team, and while Hugo doesn’t play Quidditch—her heart twists at the painful mosaic of memories that fact has spawned—Ravenclaw is his House, so rooting too enthusiastically for her daughter’s team means rooting against her son’s team. 

“But he doesn’t _play_ , Mione,” Ron always argues. Ron, head-to-toe in crimson and gold, sitting in the Gryffindor section with Rose’s classmates, including quite a few of his nieces and nephews, rather than with Hermione in the staff section or with his son in Ravenclaw. Ron is cheerleader enough for Rosie without Hermione adding insult to injury for Hugo. She’d never actually wear Ravenclaw colors, and she will cheer enthusiastically for Rosie when she scores, but she doesn’t have to rub Hugo’s nose in it, either.

It’s exhausting, this endless attempt to negotiate a middle path between her children, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw, athletics versus academics, Dad versus Mum.

She looks up at her daughter, streaking through the air. Rose is so much like Ron, tall and athletic, with his blue eyes, red-gold hair—as curly as Hermione’s, but identical to Ron’s in color—and light dusting of freckles. Luckily for her, she also has Ron’s open, easy manner. She makes friends easily, and doesn’t overthink things. She’s planning to be an Auror, like her dad and her Uncle Harry. No long, tedious academic apprenticeship for her.

Hugo has another year to decide whether he’s going to apprentice in Charms or Potions. Hermione suspects that if someone more talented than Cresswell had been teaching him, it would be Potions hands down. If only her son could have learned from Snape, as she did. She was good at Potions when she was in school, but Hugo’s better, has the deep, gut-level instinct for it the way Snape did.

Hermione catches Hugo’s eye across the pitch, and winks. He winks back, and she feels a warmth against her leg. She fishes the charmed galleon out of her cloak pocket. _It’s okay, Mum_ , the coin reads, and she feels the gentle wash of her son’s magic as her scarf turns from black to scarlet. Gods, but she loves that boy, she thinks as she returns his proud, gentle smile.

She nods to Lucius and Narcissa, ascending the staff bleachers in their green and silver scarves. They return her polite nod but don’t sit next to her, understanding the way things are with Ron, and not blaming her for it.

Padma’s heading toward her, blue Ravenclaw scarf setting off her gleaming black hair. The same hair Hermione spent six years eyeing covetously in the dorms on Padma’s twin Parvati. Though she didn’t know Padma all that well when they were in school together, Hermione likes quiet, studious Padma much better than she ever did her shallow sister.

When Poppy Pomfrey takes the seat on Padma’s other side, the librarian asks, “How’s Dex?”

_Dex_ , is it? Now that she thinks of it, Hermione realizes that Dexter Cresswell does usually sit next to Padma at Quidditch and meals. Naturally. Who else on staff would the matinee idol Potions professor want to spend time with?

“Poor fellow,” Poppy says. “He’s in a bad way. Had to send him to Mungo’s.”

Great. More Potions classes—and more Potions essays.

“He’s likely to be out for at least a month,” Poppy says, but before Hermione can go full-tilt with her wallowing in self-pity, the Mediwitch adds, “so Minerva’s hired a long-term sub.”

“Who?” Hermione asks.

“Some bloke called Ebarossa.”

Padma gives Hermione a blank look and shrugs, then, seeing the look of intense concentration on her friend’s face, asks, “What, you know him?” 

“Not personally, but I’ve read his work.” Read it, studied it, learned more from it than she has from any other Potions Master than the dead Snape. Ebarossa has taken the work she’s published—that S. Snape, Posthumous, and G. H. Jenner have published—and gone so far beyond what she could have done that it makes her brain hurt thinking about it. It takes her even longer to digest his articles in _Potions Quarterly_ than it takes her to unpick the threads of Snape’s marginalia.

_His_ articles, since Poppy said a bloke. Hermione always half hoped that P. S. Ebarossa was a witch, that they might meet someday, that this unknown genius might even become a friend. She’s never actually written to Ebarossa—unless writing articles she hopes he might respond to counts—but she’s started a dozen and more letters, only to Vanish them in a fit of insecurity.

Why would a brilliant wizard like Ebarossa want to be a substitute Potions teacher for a bunch of thick-headed teenagers? Could it be because he wants to meet her? It couldn’t be. He doesn’t know Hermione Weasley is G. H. Jenner.

“Earth to Hermione.”

Padma laughs as Hermione suddenly becomes aware of the blue-gloved hand waving in front of her face. When the blue fingers lower, she sees the narrowed eyes of her husband across the pitch, glaring at her. She glances at the scoreboard, then sees the Gryffindor players grinning at Rose, hears shouts of “Weasley!” from the Gryffindor bleachers. Rosie scored, and she missed it.

Again.


	5. Chapter 5

Dinner for two is on the table, under a stasis charm, and Hermione is curled up in her favorite armchair reading—for the third time, because she understands _almost_ all of it now—Ebarossa’s article in the new _Potions Quarterly_.

A knock at the door surprises her. She’s expecting Hugo, but of course he wouldn’t knock. When she opens the door, Padma is there.

“Come in,” she says. “Hugo will be here in a few minutes, but what’s up?”

Padma doesn’t answer, just gives her a smug, un-Padma-like grin. Then the Glamour shimmers and her son walks past her into their rooms.

“Do you _ever_ want to see the inside of Honeydukes again?” she asks. He’s banned from Hogsmeade trips for the next three months because of his last professorial impersonation.

“I’ve never been able to hold a female Glamour longer than a few seconds before,” he says.

“Planning on giving your _male_ Housemates a go next?” she grins.

“Gods, Mum!” He shudders. “Gross.”

Hermione laughs and takes the stasis charm off their dinner. Hugo probably would have lost only one month of Hogsmeade privileges for impersonating Lucius Malfoy if he hadn’t snogged half the female Ravenclaws fifth year and up while he was Glamoured. “But they _knew_ it was really me,” he protested to a stony-faced McGonagall. “They _consented_.”

Lucius thought the whole thing was hilarious, gave Hugo some very rare and valuable Charms books from the Malfoy library, and amused himself no end watching the Ravenclaw girls blushing furiously in Defence class for weeks afterward. 

“You are the vainest man in the castle,” Hermione told him, laughing.

“That would be Cresswell,” Lucius corrected. “I am merely the best-looking man in the castle.”

“Cresswell thinks that would also be Cresswell,” she said.

“But _you_ don’t think so, do you, my dear?” he said in that silky way, then laughed. “You blush as prettily as a Ravenclaw seventh year.”

“Git,” she said, and made him pay for that in their next duel.

Now she watches Hugo working his way through a mountain of mashed potatoes. He may not be much like his father in other ways, but he does have Ron’s appetite.

It’s just the two of them for dinner because Rose is celebrating Gryffindor’s Quidditch victory with her Housemates, and Ron is off somewhere—“Anywhere but here” were his exact words—probably shoveling in a mountain of Molly’s mashed potatoes, or maybe Ginny’s. 

Or Rosmerta’s.

No. She won’t go there. He said it was only once, that he was sorry, that he was drunk, that it would never happen again. And she said she believed him, and forgave him.

The reason he was drunk, naturally, was that he was angry at her after one of their arguments. So in truth it was _her_ fault he fucked the barmaid. He didn’t say that last part, but it was clearly implied.

She’d bet anything he came on her tits. He likes that, and he’s been sneaking covetous glances at Rosmerta’s tits—which are far more impressive than Hermione’s by any measure—since he was thirteen. Hermione hasn’t let him come on _her_ tits—her unremarkable, medium-sized tits—at all since the Rosmerta business. She hopes Ron has connected the dots. She likes to think she’s been subtle about her revenge, having learned a few things from her adopted Death Eater over the years.

“How long can you hold the Madam Patil Glamour?” she asks Hugo.

“Two or three minutes.”

“Show me.”

Hugo picks up his wand and his brow furrows in concentration. The surface of him shimmers, blurs, and a moment later Padma Patil is sitting across from her. 

“You can’t do the voice?” she asks.

Hugo shakes his head no, and the Glamour wavers for a second, but he regains control and it slips back into place. 

“Getting tired?”

He nods, but this time the Glamour doesn’t shift at all.

“Nice,” she says, and studies the Glamour carefully. He’s moving as little as possible, she notices. She glances at the timer she set when he put the Glamour in place. Three minutes fifty-five seconds. 

He looks, too, and Padma’s lovely dark eyes widen as the timer shows four minutes. He holds on till four fifteen, then the Glamour dissolves and it’s her son across the table again. Her own brown eyes and brown hair, though with just the right amount of curl instead of the genetic hand she was dealt.

“Was it that hard to hold a male form at first?” she asks.

“Almost.”

“But now it’s easy.”

“Yeah, but only if it’s someone I’ve been able to observe a lot at close range. I can do Dad all day,” he says, then blurs, and resolves as Ron.

“I’d just as soon you didn’t,” Hermione says drily.

Ron-Hugo frowns. “What’d he do now?”

“He didn’t do anything, just please take his face off.”

Hugo does, then grins with Lucius Malfoy’s lovely white teeth. “Better?”

“Prat,” she laughs. “I have no idea why, but I prefer you as you.”

Hugo obliges.

“The real challenge is a Glamour that isn’t a copy of a real person,” she says.

“I know.” Hugo scoops more potatoes from the bowl and pours more gravy. “Could you do it when you were my age?”

“No, I learned during my Mastery.”

“Then I don’t feel so bad.”

“You’re so far ahead of your class. There’s nothing to feel bad about.”

“My class of dunderheads?” he grins.

“Well, not _all_ of them.”

“But most?”

“Most,” she agrees.

“How long can you Glamour yourself as someone who doesn’t exist?” he asks.

“Six or seven hours female, two or three hours male.”

He whistles.

“Though someone’s working on a potion that would anchor the Glamour to a charmed object, you could extend the time and reduce the amount of magical energy it takes to maintain it. Theoretically, at least. He hasn’t actually developed it yet.”

“I know,” he says. “Ebarossa.”

Her mouth falls open. “Since when do you read _Potions Quarterly_?”

“Since third year, but I didn’t understand most of it till fifth.”

She stares at this brilliant, grinning boy, so much like her that it’s no wonder Ron can’t relate to him.

“Kneazle got your tongue, Professor Jenner?” he asks. The smug grin may be on his own face, but the arched brow and wry twist of the lip are pure Lucius Malfoy.

“How did you know?” she asks finally.

Hugo shrugs. “Who else has got access to Snape’s papers?”

“Every professor in the castle, and any visiting scholar who asks the Headmistress for access.”

“Okay, who’s got access _and_ the ability to understand Snape’s work?”

“That narrows things a bit,” she concedes.

“And who’s actually been in there reading and expanding on them since he left them to you?”

“He didn’t leave them to me. He just gave me access.”

Hugo’s eyes focus on something in the middle distance, and his brows knit together. Hermione watches as his appearance blurs, shifts, then blurs again. 

“Shite,” he mutters.

“What are you trying to do?” She ignores the profanity. He’ll be of age next year, and compared to Glamouring himself as Lucius Malfoy so he could get girls to make out with him, a little swearing doesn’t seem all that bad.

Instead of answering, he starts concentrating again, and this time when the blurred surface solidifies, Severus Snape is sitting across the table from her.


	6. Chapter 6

“Mum! Are you all right?” Hugo gasps, bolting from his chair and coming around to her side of the table.

Hermione is crying, and hyperventilating. She feels Hugo’s arms around her, and turns, hugging him tightly, her tears soaking his shirt.

“Mum?” he asks tentatively.

She sobs harder.

“I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” she says, and pulls back, wiping her eyes with her napkin. She looks at Hugo intently. Just Hugo. Not Snape. The Snape Glamour was there and gone in an instant, but during that instant, it was as though she watched him die all over again.

“I didn’t realize you and Snape were…close.”

She shakes her head. “We weren’t.”

“Then…?”

She takes a shuddering breath. “You spend that much time with someone’s books, I guess you become close to the memory of them.”

Hugo nods.

“Also, I watched that thrice-damned snake kill him.”

“I should have realized. I’m sorry.” He’s quiet for a moment, has what Ron calls his Thinking Face on. “If you feel that way about him, about his memory, why do you let Dad talk about him the way he does?”

“Your father and I don’t _let_ each other do things.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…if he knows you feel that way, why does he do it?”

Hermione sighs and looks at her son. She isn’t going to say it, because she and Ron follow the United Front rule, but she’s pretty sure Hugo knows why. The shadow that crosses his eyes and the tightening of the muscle at his jaw tell her that he does. He puts his arms around her again, and this time she lets herself cry. Whether it’s for Snape or herself or the ashes of her marriage, she isn’t sure. She supposes it doesn’t matter.

Did anyone cry for Snape, when he died? Harry and Ron acted like she was crazy when she told them go on, she’d catch up, and stayed there pouring Blood Replenisher down his throat and dittany into the horrible, gaping wounds on his neck. 

She used a Levitation charm to bring him to where they were treating the wounded, left him in more capable hands than her own, then followed after Harry and Ron. When she looked for him in the hospital wing later, he wasn’t there, or among the dead waiting for burial. Nor had he been sent to St. Mungo’s. Did someone hate him enough to Vanish his remains? Or had he left on his own? Though he couldn’t have, not as badly injured as he was.

For months—years, if she’s being truthful—she held out hope that he had lived, harangued the Malfoys until it finally sank in. He was gone. He wasn’t coming back. He’d have wanted his books, surely, if he’d lived. A library like that was irreplaceable. She’s been immersing herself in it for more than twenty years and still hasn’t come near to exhausting its riches.

She dreams about him sometimes, still. Not as often, but once in a while. Ron knows. She made the mistake of telling him, early in their marriage, when she woke sobbing and gasping and he comforted her, until he learned why. Now, on the rare occasions she wakes him crying, she tells him it’s the dragon or the Horcruxes or Bellatrix, and he appears to believe her, but she isn’t sure.

More often, though, in recent years, the dreams aren’t about the snake and the blood and the Dark Lord. They’re about the memories she saw in the Pensieve, the memories of a man who loved a woman so deeply and so long that he gave his life to avenge her death and protect her son. A man who loved so completely, but was never loved in return. Not by the woman who refused to forgive her childhood friend. Not by the man who manipulated him all his adult life. Not even by his own goddamn _parents_.

How does a man who has never been loved himself learn to love someone the way he loved Lily? Or perhaps it is _only_ someone who has never known love who can love that way? Anyone else would know that love does in fact have limits, that it is never for _always_.

No one has loved her _always_. Not Ron, whom she assumed would. Not Harry, who will, if—when—she and Ron divorce, choose the Weasleys over her. Not even _her_ goddamn parents, for that matter. Oh, things are fine on the surface, and they adore Rose and Hugo, but they never really forgave her for what she did. For saving their lives, she calls it. For taking away their choice, their freedom, their very _humanity_ , they call it.

Selfish genes being what they are, the Grangers haven’t repudiated their daughter completely, but they have replaced her in their hearts with her children. They love Rose. They love Hugo. They tolerate Hermione.

How did Snape live, loved by no one? 


	7. Chapter 7

There’s someone at her table. She halts mid-stride, as if frozen. He looks up. Hazel eyes in a blandly forgettable face. Brown hair a shade darker than her own.

“Sorry, I was just surprised,” she says. “There’s usually no one else in here.”

He glances down at the table, then back up at her. “And this is where you normally sit?”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s another table over there.” She walks to it and puts her bag down.

The man stands. He’s quite tall. He holds his hand out. “Steven Ebarossa.”

“Eb…” Her voice trails off. P. S. Ebarossa. Here, at her table. She tries not to stare as she shakes his hand. Steven, he said. So he goes by his middle name. No doubt because the P. stands for one of those ludicrous names wizards give their children. 

“And you are?” he prompts.

She swallows, then manages to get out, “Hermione Weasley.”

“The Charms Mistress. I’ve read your work.”

“And I’ve read yours.”

“You read the Potions journals as well as those in your field?”

She nods. She should tell him yes, though when she publishes there it’s under another name, and he’ll say, oh, what name, and she’ll tell him, and he’ll gasp in astonished admiration and they’ll spend hours talking about theory. But she doesn’t, because she’s completely tongue-tied, like some fifth-year gaping at a Quidditch star.

“But of course you do,” he says. “You’ve been covering the NEWT-level Potions classes, Minerva said.”

“Yes.”

“Would this be a convenient time for you to show me what you’ve been working on with the students?”

“My lesson plans are in your office. If we talk there, I can show you how Cresswell has things set up in his lab and storeroom as well.”

“That would be acceptable.”

* * *

Walking through the gates of Hogwarts after more than twenty years was disorientating enough. Having his former student show him his old classroom and office is positively surreal. Severus studies Granger in profile as she fusses with the jars of ingredients. 

He knew, of course, that she’d be over forty, but in his mind, he never did the mental age-progression. Even as he was responding to her brilliantly written articles with his own, he still pictured her at eighteen or however old she was the day she pried his lips open to pour Blood Replenisher in his mouth and shout at him through her tears, “I said _swallow_ , goddamn it!”

So he did. He hadn’t meant to, was ready to let that pointless and ironic death—killed for mastery of a wand he didn’t control—serve as the final act in the farce that was his life. But he’d always been good at following orders—those first of a barely-human megalomaniac, then a manipulative old codger, and finally a teenage witch who swore like a Muggle.

She isn’t a teenager anymore. She’s a mature woman, and disconcertingly attractive. He supposes she must have been attractive in her teens, but when he was a teacher, he trained himself not to look at students as attractive or not, any more than he could help it. When he thought about Granger then, it was with frustration. The brightest student he’d ever had, and instead of mentoring her, grooming her for an apprenticeship, he had to publicly belittle her because she was Potter’s Muggle-born sidekick. All he could give her was his books, a posthumous _fuck you_ to the Dark Lord.

“He keeps them alphabetized, I’m afraid,” she says, indicating Cresswell’s stores.

Severus picks up a jar of lacewing flies that have clearly seen better days. “Hmpf.” He Vanishes them in distaste, and Granger gives him a puzzled smile. He raises a brow inquiringly at her. The expression is insufficiently eloquent on Ebarossa’s insipid face, but it’s the only one he’s got at the moment.

“Nothing,” she says. “You just reminded me of someone for a second.”

“Who?”

“The man whose office this used to be.”

“I have never had the, ah, _pleasure_ , but from what I’ve heard of Dexter Cresswell, that is hardly a compliment.”

“Not Cresswell,” she laughs. “Snape. Did you ever meet him?”

“Not exactly.”

Granger stops fussing with her paperwork and studies him. “What does _not exactly_ mean?”

“I’ve been carrying on something of a dialogue with his…intellectual successor for a number of years now.”

“The articles.”

He nods. “I assume you know Jenner?”

She startles. “Why would you assume that?”

“Because he—or she—must spend quite a bit of time using Snape’s collection here in your library. Surely your paths must have crossed?”

She bites her lower lip—a lip he never noticed before is actually rather delectable—then says, “I’m the only one who uses Snape’s collection. Jenner is my pseudonym.”

“Why not publish under your own name, as you do in Charms?”

She shrugs. “It’s complicated.”

“As you say, Professor Weasley.” 

“Hermione,” she says. When he doesn’t answer immediately, she continues quickly, “Unless you prefer to keep things formal. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep, Professor Ebarossa.”

“Not at all. Given names are acceptable.”

“I’ve made a list of supplies we’re short on,” she says, “but I’m sure you’ll want to add to it. The ordering and account information is on your desk.”

“Thank you…Hermione.”

“You’re welcome, Steven. All the student papers have been marked, and I’ve left my lesson plans so you can see what I’ve been working on with them. Floo me if you need anything.”

“There is one thing.”

“Yes?”

“It occurs to me that it might be more efficient for us to carry on our discussions verbally, rather than waiting for publication of successive journal issues for each turn in the conversation?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You will note that this story no longer says x/? chapters but x/27. Yes, my friends, I have _finished_! Chapters will start going up faster now that all I have to do is proofread and tweak. Thanks as always to the incomparable turtle_wexler for beta reading and Brit-picking...though I'm delighted (okay, proud and smug) to say that there weren't all that many Americanisms to expunge in this one. Bill in lieu of check at a restaurant, and...I can't remember what else, but really, I _am_ getting better.

Because their conversation leads to a question that requires one of Snape’s books to answer, they return to the library. Ebarossa gestures between the tables. “Your place or mine?”

Hermione indicates hers. “This one, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m used to it.”

He nods—so formal, like Snape, she thinks again—and waits while she gets the book they need. 

The answer they find leads to another question, and another book, until Hermione is startled to hear Padma’s voice asking, “Lock up for me?”

Hermione looks up. “Of course,” she says, then turns to Ebarossa. “I had no idea it was so late. I’m afraid we’ve missed dinner.”

“Can we order from the elves and continue our conversation?” he asks.

“Absolutely. But not here, of course.”

“Different _your place or mine_?” 

She bites her lip and hopes she isn’t blushing. “How about the kitchens?”

“As you wish.” He starts putting away his books.

She does the same, except one that she puts in her bag to finish reading in bed later. 

“You haven’t added any of your notes to the margins,” he observes, flipping through the pages of the last book.

“I would never!” she gasps. “Honestly.”

“Snape wrote all over them,” he points out as they leave the library.

“They were his books.” She locks the door with the spell Padma uses. “He could do as he liked with them.”

“Have you found his notes useful?”

“Are you mad? I couldn’t have done a fraction of the work I have without them.”

“Don’t you think your notes might be as useful to other scholars?”

“Possibly, but I’m not half the theorist he was. Not in Potions anyway.” She stops short as the staircase they were about to step on moves away. “Besides, they’re not mine to write in.”

“He left them for your use, did he not?”

“For my use, yes, but not to _me_ , as my possessions. They belong to Hogwarts.”

“Books are merely vehicles for conveying ideas. The ideas inside them are what’s important.”

“I don’t think my ideas are worth writing in Snape’s books.”

“I do. They are.”

“But they’re not your books either,” she objects as they reach the painting that covers the door to the kitchen.

Ebarossa’s only response is an enigmatic look as he reaches out to tickle the painted pear.

“How did you know to do that?” Hermione asks.

He waits for her to enter first, then follows. “Call it a lucky guess.”

“Missy Professor Granger!” an ancient elf cries in delight. “And Master—”

“Good evening,” he cuts in. “Professor Granger and I seem to have missed dinner. Would you be so kind as to bring us some of the leftovers?”

“Of course, Master,” the elf replies with a knowing wink, and pops away.

“Why doesn’t she call you Professor Weasley?” he asks.

“I have no idea, but none of the elves do. It drives Ron batty.” Hermione hasn’t told anyone else this, but she likes it, and when she and Ron are arguing, will call an elf for tea just so he can hear the elf say the name she wanted to keep when they married. 

“Witches don’t do that, Mione,” Ron argued at the time. “And Mum would go spare.”

The elf returns with two plates of roast beef with potatoes and vegetables, a bottle of red wine, and two goblets.

Hermione is starving, and has to restrain herself from bolting her food in front of this brilliant man who seems far more interested in their conversation than he is in dinner. He’s picked up the thread of their conversation from where Padma interrupted them, and as soon as the edge has been taken off her hunger, she’s back in the thick of it as well.

How long has it been since she’s been able to talk to anyone like this? At Charms or Potions conferences, occasionally, but there are as many, if not more, social climbers like Slughorn and Cresswell as there are genuine scholars at those things. Her visits to Filius used to sustain her, but since he passed away three years ago, she’s felt the loss keenly. There’s her best former apprentice, a brilliant Ravenclaw who graduated Hogwarts a decade ago, but since she moved to New Zealand, they rarely talk in person. Occasionally there will be a sixth or seventh year student—at the moment it’s her son—intelligent and interested enough to take the edge off her intellectual isolation, but the past several hours with Ebarossa have revived her the way water and sunlight will resuscitate a moribund plant.

The last of the wine glows crimson in the candlelight as Hermione watches Ebarossa bring the glass to his lips and drink. Her eyes follow his hand as he sets the goblet down. His hands remind her of Snape’s, elegant and well-formed, with long, dexterous fingers. She only assumes his are dexterous. She hasn’t seen him prepare ingredients, but she will tomorrow, when they have plans to brew together.

She looks up from his hands to his eyes, and realizes he’s caught her staring. He’s looking at her with an intensity that unnerves her, and for the briefest moment, his eyes look darker. She blinks, and sees that they’re just as she remembered. She swallows. It’s the wine, obviously. She’s not used to a second glass.

“It’s late,” she says, getting to her feet and fumbling for her bag. “I’d better get back to my rooms.”

He stands as well. “I’ll walk you.”

“That isn’t necessary. I’ve lived in this castle since I was eleven years old. You’re the newcomer. I should be walking you.”

“Unnecessary. I have an excellent sense of direction.”

Hermione walks toward her apartments, and Ebarossa keeps pace with her. She steals a glance at him, noticing the way he walks, graceful, like a large feline predator.

When he stops walking, she opens her mouth to ask why, but he silences her with a raised hand. Staring at a tapestry, he casts a nonverbal Hominem Revelio, and the outline of two people appears behind the hanging. 

“Out,” he orders, and two students emerge from behind the tapestry. The girl’s blue tie is undone, and she’s quickly buttoning the top buttons of her blouse. The boy looks at them with an expression that’s two thirds embarrassed and one third smug.

“Hugo,” Hermione says, hands on her hips. “Honestly!”

“Hi, Mum,” he replies, then holds out his hand to the visiting professor. “Hello, sir. Welcome to Hogwarts.”

“As I’m not sure where that’s been, I think I’ll pass,” Ebarossa sneers.

The girl emits a strangled cry and runs off down the hallway.

“Five points from Ravenclaw,” Hermione calls after her, then glares at her less than properly contrite son. “And _ten_ from Ravenclaw for you.”

“That’s not fair,” Hugo protests. “Nott only lost five.”

“Nott isn’t making a member of staff look bad in front of an eminent colleague.”

“Speaking of which,” Hugo says, looking at Ebarossa, assessing. “How about we make it five and a detention with you, sir?”

“You wish to chop flobberworms, Mr. Weasley?” Ebarossa asks.

“No, I want to brew with you. I’ve been reading your articles for years. I’d like to try—”

“Mr. Weasley,” Ebarossa interrupts. “Detention is for punishment, not private tutoring.”

“How about if I do ingredient prep in exchange for tutoring?” Hugo suggests.

Ebarossa looks at Hermione as if to say, _seriously_?

“Go to bed, Hugo,” Hermoine says. “Sorry about that,” she says to Ebarossa after her son has loped off down the corridor.

“Were you that shameless when you were in school?” he asks as they continue walking.

“I’d never have dared to ask Snape for private tutoring. Though I’d have given just about anything to have it.”

“And the getting caught in alcoves after hours?”

She averts her eyes, and doesn’t tell him that no one she went to school with _wanted_ to snog her behind tapestries. 

“Is your son worth the time it would take to give him private tutoring?” he asks.

“As his mother, I imagine I’m completely biased, but yes, he is. He’s much better at Potions than I was at his age.”

“Then I shall consider it.”

“Thank you. I’d be grateful.” She indicates a door. “This is my stop.”

“Good night, then, Hermione.”

“Good night, Steven,” she says, and opens the door. She casts a low Lumos and frowns at the beer bottles and crisps left on the coffee table. So, the prodigal husband has returned.

“Where have you been?” Ron demands when she reaches the bedroom. He’s sitting up in bed, one of the red folders his case files come in on his lap.

“Asks the man who hasn’t been home in days.”

“I told you where I was. Where were _you_?”

“In the library till it closed, then in the kitchens for a late dinner.”

He looks at her long and hard. His Auror look. 

“Ask Padma if you don’t believe me. She asked me to lock up for her,” she says. When he keeps looking at her, she storms to the fireplace and thows in Floo powder. “Do I really need to embarrass all three of us?” She glares at him, trembling, half in anger and half in uneasiness about her lie by omission.

Ron looks from Hermione to the green flames and back again. “No.”

She’s thinks the bathroom door has already slammed behind her when she mutters, “Arsehole,” but she can’t be sure.


	9. Chapter 9

Severus’s first class is sixth year. Because it’s NEWT-level, all the Houses are combined in one class. All four colors of tie are represented, with the usual disproportionate amount of Ravenclaw blue. One of the blue ties is on Hermione’s son Hugo, and judging by the amount of red hair in the room, Severus would bet Hugo’s not the only Weasley here. He glances down at the class roster, and sure enough, the last three names on it are Weasley comma something. He sighs.

He’s half tempted to do the old “bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death” speech, but it doesn’t seem quite appropriate from a mid-year substitute. So instead he sticks to Plan A, keep things bland and forgettable, and says, “I am Professor Ebarossa. We will continue from where Professor Gr—er, Weasley left off last class. Turn to—”

“Excuse me, Professor?” says a girl in a Hufflepuff tie, raising her hand.

Instead of docking her House points for speaking before being called on, he says, “Yes, Miss…?”

“Holloway, sir.”

“Yes, Miss Holloway?”

“Don’t you want to know our names?”

Instead of asking her if she thinks this is a Muggle primary school, he just gives her a withering look. When she fails to wither, he realizes that Glamoured as he is, he may not be intimidating enough to teach Potions properly. Hmm. Clearly, he is too long out of practice, and did not think this through.

“Because all our professors find out our names on the first day of class, if they haven’t taught us before,” Holloway continues.

“Thank you, Miss Holloway,” he replies. He looks at Hugo. “I’ve already met Mr. Weasley. One of them, anyway. I understand there are a multitude of Weasleys here?”

The class laughs.

“And Miss Nott. We’ve also had the pleasure.”

Nott stares at her desk, blushing. 

“Where is the rest of the Weasley contingent?” he asks.

Two hands go up, a ginger Gryffindor boy and a Ravenclaw girl with dark ringlets.

“Are you by any chance George Weasley’s daughter?” he asks the girl. “The one I’m not supposed to let work with Longbottom and who is the cause of my being here in the first place?”

“That’s my sister Felicity, sir. She’s in fourth year. I’m Gwen. You won’t have any trouble from me.”

“Yeah, Gwen’s the suck-up Weasley,” the ginger boy Weasley says. “Uncle George would disown her if he thought Gran would let him.”

Gwen gives him the kind of look Granger used to give Potter and Weasley when they were in school.

Severus looks at another red-haired Gryffindor boy. “Are you also a Weasley?”

“Potter, sir,” he says. “But my mum’s a Weasley.”

Severus glances down at the roster. Potter, Albus Severus. Sweet Circe. That’s a bit of gossip Lucius neglected to pass along.

* * *

“You might have warned me that Potter named one of his brats after me,” Severus says by way of greeting when Lucius opens the door. 

“And have you whinge at me about it via owl post?” Lucius pours firewhiskey into two crystal tumblers and hands one to Severus. “No, thank you.”

Severus glowers, then realizes it doesn’t work properly with this face. “There are quite a few things about which you might have informed me.”

“Such as?” 

“Such as Granger.”

“What about Hermione?”

“You know perfectly well what about her.” 

“I assure you that I do not.” Lucius takes a sip of his whiskey and appears to think hard about it. “Oh, do you mean the business with Weasley?”

“Could you be a bit more specific? There are apparently several dozen Weasleys in the castle at present.”

“Her husband, of course.”

“What about him?”

“Oh. You don’t know. Never mind, then. I thought that might be what you meant.”

“You thought _what_ might be what I meant?”

“That their marriage is all but over.”

“It is?” Severus replays their conversation from the previous evening, looking for indications that what Lucius says is true. Upon reflection, he can’t recall her mentioning her husband at all, which in itself is noteworthy.

“No, I don’t imagine she’d tell a total stranger that,” Lucius agrees. “I’m not sure what else I should have told you about her.”

“Never mind.” Severus drinks his whiskey and stares into the fire blazing in Lucius’s grate. There is no way he’s telling Lucius what he did mean, which is why didn’t Lucius bother mentioning that grown-up Granger is totally fucking gorgeous.


	10. Chapter 10

She’s totally fucking gorgeous. Hermione knows that’s what Ron’s thinking, the way he keeps stealing glances at Gabrielle when he thinks Hermione isn’t looking. Like she gives a rat’s arse if he wants to make a fool of himself gaping at that bloody Veela.

Hermione likes Fleur well enough, but she’s never been keen on Fleur’s younger sister. She’s tried to be friendly, but Gabrielle has always seemed standoffish. This was irrelevant when Gabrielle only came to Weasley family events once every four or five years. Now, however, she’s newly divorced and staying with Fleur and Bill, apparently indefinitely, and has come to the last three dinners.

An only child who ruined her relationship with her parents, Hermione threw herself into the Weasley family joyfully and gratefully when she and Ron married. She thoroughly enjoyed the holidays, the Saturday barbecues, and even watching the pick-up Quidditch games. She loves the multitude of children from the six living Weasley siblings.

She still enjoys the holidays, when the children are there, but now that they’re all at Hogwarts, or, with the eldest ones, off doing apprenticeships or at university, the adults-only dinners are something of a slog. She wanted so badly to be part of something larger than herself, but now that she is, she feels almost lost within it. _Be careful what you wish for, Granger_ , she thinks grimly.

It’s funny how she talks to herself as Granger, rather than Hermione, as she did when she was younger. Draco’s the only one who still calls her Granger, mainly because it winds Ron up, she assumes.

She glances down the table, where Ron has stopped pretending he isn’t staring at Gabrielle.

“Want me to kick his arse for you?” George murmurs in her ear.

“Not especially.”

“If I wasn’t a married man, I’d snog you senseless to make him jealous.”

“If you weren’t a married man, I’d have left him for you years ago.”

George grins. Neither of them means it, and they both know it, but it relieves the tedium.

“How are my kids doing?” he asks.

“Felicity is grumbling about her detentions and torturing her teachers, as usual. Gwen is in raptures over the new Potions professor.”

“So is Hugo,” George says. “Can you tell me why _your_ child owls me when my own children won’t?”

“Because favorite uncles are much more interesting than one’s own parents.” Until you fuck things up the way she has, and realize you oughtn’t to have taken them for granted.

“And the twins?” George asks. “Their cousins still giving the poor little snakes a rough go of it?”

“Proving themselves worthy of their House,” she grins. “Revenge is a dish best served cold, according to Slytherin.” First years Fabian and Gideon were being picked on mercilessly by their cousins until their sister Felicity—House traitor, her fellow Gryffindors accused—taught them how to get even.

“Good for them,” George says. “Did you know the Hat offered Fred and me a choice between Gryffindor and Slytherin?”

“No! Did you consider it?”

“Oh, I’d have done it, absolutely, just to see the look on Mum’s face,” he says, “but Fred came first alphabetically, and he was always more afraid of Mum than I was. When it was my turn, I didn’t want us to be in different Houses, so I took the road more traveled.”

On her other side, Harry finishes his conversation with Percy’s wife and finally notices Ron and Gabrielle. He glares at them, but Hermione puts her hand on his arm and says, “It’s okay, Harry.”

“It’s bloody well _not_ okay, Mione.”

“I offered to kick his arse, but she said no,” George says.

“All marriages have rough spots, Harry,” Hermione says. “Except _yours_ , of course,” she adds, rolling her eyes. “But most do. It’s normal. In pre-modern times, the average Muggle marriage only lasted eight to twelve years before one of them died in childbirth or battle or from a burst appendix or, I don’t know, an infected hangnail, I suppose. Divorce became a necessary substitute for death once life expectancy increased to the point where people simply couldn’t stand one another any longer.”

“What about pre-modern witches and wizards?” Harry asks. “They lived a lot longer.”

“They had… _arrangements_ ,” George says.

Harry’s eyes widen. “Merlin, Mione, don’t tell me you and Ron have one of those?”

She glances down the table. “No, but perhaps we should.”

“Do you…is there…?”

She shakes her head. “George is married, so no.”

Harry nearly chokes on his wine.

“Calm down, Harry. I was teasing.”

Harry looks at her and George. “The two of you scare me sometimes.”

“Thank you,” they reply in unison.

“Harry,” she begins, then bites her lip and falls silent.

“What is it?”

She takes a deep breath and plunges in. “Did Ron stay with you and Ginny for a couple of days last week?”

Harry’s tongue-tied, clearly panicked. He glances down the table at Ron and then back at Hermione. “He, erm, that is—” 

“It’s okay, Harry,” she says. “Never mind. I don’t want you caught in the middle of things.”

Both Harry and George are looking at her with such pity she can hardly bear it. “Give my apologies to Molly and Arthur,” she says, then stands and walks outside. She takes a few calming breaths before Apparating so she doesn’t splinch herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _just finished_ this story, made the final edits on the epilogue in response to turtle_wexler's always spot-on feedback. Updates will start appearing faster now that all I have to do is one final once-over before posting.
> 
> During the past few days, I've started writing a new story, the kind I never thought I'd write, i.e., a HBP AU marriage law fic. All of my stories have been postwar ones where Hermione is an adult, both because of the ick factor of her being in her teens in a SSHG story, and because I often find myself getting bored when reading stories where the events of the war are rehashed--camping in the forest...escaping on the dragon...torture at Malfoy Manor...yadda, yadda. All these things were exciting in the books, but in fanfics, when I know what's going to happen, sometimes I can't help but start skimming. So, I'm trying to figure out how to do a sixth year AU without the "Yeah, okay, here's the part where they ______" stuff, _and_ without the teen Hermione ick factor. 
> 
> Will I succeed? A-plus beta turtle_wexler said the early chapters made her LOL at a very canon Snape, so maybe. Suggestions welcome as I write. Reply and tell me what you love and what you hate about wartime AUs, and about ML fics. Or talk me out of it, because I'm really not sure I want to do this. At any rate, I won't post the first chapter until I know for sure how to end it, and am sure I'm going to finish. I am not going to let this story break my perfect track record of No Abandoned Stories, Ever.
> 
> Love you guys, and thanks so much for all your kudos and comments!
> 
> xoxo,
> 
> Vitellia


	11. Chapter 11

“Severus, I do wish you’d take that tiresome Glamour off,” Narcissa says.

“And have someone come to the door and see a dead man sitting here?” Severus says.

“The Dark Lord’s been dead more than twenty years,” she says. “You don’t need to play the paranoid spy anymore, you know. Really, I don’t see why you couldn’t just come back here as yourself.”

“If I do that, I can’t go back to being dead again.”

“But you could still go back to that quaint little town of yours,” Lucius says, “with the strange food, big-haired witches, and ubiquitous smell of cow shit.”

Narcissa gives Lucius a reproving look, but Severus smiles. He loves the food, rather likes big hair, and stopped noticing the cow shit years ago. A part of him would like to walk to the gates and Apparate back there right now. As he stares into the flames, they blaze green, and Granger’s face appears.

“Lucius, are you up for a duel?” she asks.

“My dear, you’ll be the death of me. I still haven’t recovered from our last one.”

“Coward,” she scoffs.

“Why don’t you duel our new colleague Ebarossa instead?” Lucius asks, ignoring Severus, who is scowling and shaking his head emphatically. “He’s sitting here with me right now, and was just saying how much he missed having someone to duel with.”

“Really?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lucius says as Severus mouths, _No!_ “He says he’ll meet you in the Defence classroom in half an hour.”

When the flames return to their normal color, Severus glares at his friend. “You are an insufferable, interfering busybody.”

“I’ve never claimed otherwise,” Lucius shrugs.

* * *

“You’re going to fight in that?” Granger asks when he enters the classroom. _That_ is dark gray trousers and waistcoat and a long-sleeved white dress shirt. She’s wearing a red t-shirt, worn thin and clinging in all the right places, and a pair of what he knows from his experiences with Muggle women are called yoga pants. Clearly, this costume is designed to distract him and give her an advantage. Her prodigious mane of hair—a look witches in Texas spend years perfecting charms to achieve—is contained in a tight braid.

“What _should_ I fight in?” he asks.

“I don’t know, something more comfortable?” She shrugs. “But suit yourself.”

Until now, he realizes, she’s had on what Texans call her _company manners_ during their interactions. They’re long gone now. She’s pacing like a caged animal, magic radiating off her in waves. It’s quite possibly the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Since the Glamour is covering his Dark Mark, he transfigures his clothes into a black t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, and takes a dueling stance.

Flaming fucksticks, as Buddy would say. She’s good. Better than good. She was _good_ when he taught her in sixth year. Now, she’s bloody magnificent.

He was even better, back in the day, but it’s been a long time since he’s dueled someone who could give him a run for his money. At first, he has to work to just keep up with her. But the muscle memory returns, and they settle into a rhythm, hex and shield, attack and defend, each holding their own.

Without the potion to anchor it, he could never hold the Glamour and still duel like this, but with the potion, it might as well be his real face. He can forget about it, and focus all his energies on beating Granger.

He feels the thrum of her magic, twining and dancing with his. He’s felt it before, in her sixth year dueling practice in his classroom, then in the healing spells she used in the shack. It’s familiar, but so much more powerful now. She’s become a witch to be reckoned with, as he knew she would.

But _he_ was a Death Eater. He may be an aging, out-of-practice one, but still. He’s not going to let a girl who used to be a firstie waving her hand frantically in his class out-duel him. 

Hex by hex, he wears her down, slowly, inexorably, until he feels the tide turn in his favor, and a last burst of adrenaline pushes him onward until she’s on the floor and her wand is in his hand.

“Fucking hell!” she gasps.

“Indeed,” he smirks. As she pants for breath, he tries to look less exhausted and battered than he feels as he conjures glasses, fills them with water, and hands her one.

She nods her thanks and gulps it down. She refills it with her own Aguamenti and drains the glass again. “That was…unexpected,” she says once she can speak normally.

He sits down beside her. “Why is that?”

In lieu of answering, she raises her wand and begins healing the cuts and scrapes he received during their duel. He startles, not used to anyone healing his wounds.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Lucius and I always heal each other, but it was probably too forward, as we don’t know each other well.”

“I’ve grown accustomed to forward, living in the States.”

“Shall I, then?”

He nods, and feels her magic wash over him again, healing rather than hurting now. 

“May I?” he asks before reciprocating, and she nods.

When he’s finished, she Summons the bruise paste. When they’ve both finished with it, she asks, “Where were you during the war?”

“I’ve been living in America for many years now.”

She looks at him, long and hard, then says, “You neglect to say how many years, implying you were there during the war, but not coming out and saying it. If you went to Hogwarts, I’m pretty sure I can guess your House affiliation.” She takes another sip of water. “Did you?”

“If I had, it would have been long before you arrived here.”

She looks at him for so long he has to force himself to remain impassive. “You’re like him, in some ways, you know,” she says at last, as though to herself rather than to him.

“Like whom?” 

“Snape.”

How did she make _that_ leap? He keeps his voice bland and uninterested when he says, “I’ve seen photographs. I see no resemblance.”

He transfigures his clothing back to its original form. He’s grown comfortable with casual clothing in America, but here, with her, he needs his armor. He wishes he had his old frock coat with all the buttons.

“Not the way you look,” she says. “It’s your mannerisms, the way you walk. Your speech patterns—minus the constant insults, of course—and, just the littlest bit, your voice.” A wistful smile plays at the corner of her lips. “He had the loveliest voice.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“And your hands,” she says, picking one of them up and turning it over in hers. He forces himself to remain still, not to pull his hand back or react in any way to her touch, which has set every one of his nerve endings ablaze. She releases his hand, almost reluctantly, he’d say if he didn’t know better.

“Even your magic,” she continues. “While we were dueling, it felt…familiar, somehow.”

He drinks some of his water so he’ll have an excuse not to look at her. She was little more than a child. How could she recognize it after all these years? “Constant insults?” he asks, to distract her.

“He was a spy. He had to appear to hate us all.”

“But you don’t think he did?”

“I certainly believed he did at the time. Though when he left me access to his books, I had to wonder if maybe he didn’t hate me just a little less than he hated Harry and Ron.”

“I’m sure he didn’t hate you at all, Miss Granger.”

She draws in a breath. “Why did you call me that?”

He inwardly curses his carelessness, but gives her the dismissive wave Lucius does so well. “Weasley, Granger, Jenner. So many names. One is hard pressed to keep them all straight.”

She stares at him as though she can see through the illusion, though he knows she can’t.

“Who are you?” she asks softly.

If they hadn’t just dueled, he’d worry that she suspects he’s Glamoured. But she thinks his potion is still in the theoretical stage, and knows no one could hold a Glamour during a duel like that. He knows her question means _What sort of man are you?_ rather than _Who are you behind that Glamour?_

He turns to face her. “Someone with whom you can talk, in person and without a three-month lag time, about the theoretical and practical work you’ve been doing all on your own.” He can tell from her reaction that she understands as well as he does the isolation, the ache to talk to someone else about the ideas swirling in your head. “Also, someone who alleviates the need for you to teach classes in two subjects.”

“So, don’t look a gift Thestral in the mouth?” she asks with a wry twist of her mouth that tells him they’re out of dangerous waters.

He returns her sardonic smile. “Precisely.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the chapter you've all been waiting for. Not, it's not sex. Get your minds out of the gutter.

“Dueling the Death Eater again?” Ron asks when she gets back to their rooms.

“No, the substitute Potions professor,” she says, ignoring the barb and keeping her tone pleasant. “He’s quite good. Better than Malfoy, actually.”

He looks her up and down. “Do you have to dress like that?”

“It’s comfortable.”

“I’m not particularly _comfortable_ having other men looking at your arse.”

She bites back the comment about Veelas and body parts that springs to mind, and goes into the bathroom to run a bath. While the tub is filling, she goes into the living room, casts the strongest Muffliato she can, and floo calls Harry.

“What’s up, Mione?”

“Are you and Ron in the office or out in the field tomorrow?”

“I’m out most of the day, but Ron’s in the office all morning finishing up some paperwork. Not sure about the afternoon. Why didn’t you ask Ron?” He frowns. “Is he…out?”

“No, he’s here. I just wanted to surprise him during my free period tomorrow. Don’t tell him I asked, okay?”

“I won’t,” Harry smiles. “I’m glad you’re, well, working on things, I guess.”

“Me too,” she says, then closes the connection, cancels the spell, and walks through the bedroom without so much as looking at Ron. In the bathroom, she Vanishes the steam from the mirror, closes her eyes, and concentrates. When she opens them, ice blue eyes framed by long, silver-blonde hair look back at her.

She’s working on things, all right.

* * *

“Come in,” Ron calls. 

Hermione takes a breath, runs a hand through her Glamoured hair, and opens the door to the office Ron shares with Harry.

“Gabi!” Ron’s face lights up and he stands and walks around his desk. 

She closes the door behind her and smiles, hopes she doesn’t have to do much talking, because she’s not all that confident about the accent. She needn’t have worried, as Ron has her pressed up against the door in a trice, his mouth on hers, hot and seeking. She channels her fury into the kiss, returning it ferociously.

“Couldn’t wait till tonight?” he grins, unbuttoning her blouse. He misinterprets the growl that escapes her throat and says, “Aren’t you the little wildcat today?” before taking her breast into his mouth.

“All right, that’s quite enough of that,” she says, ending the spell and putting her bra to rights. “I have what I came here for.”

“Mione?” Ron gasps. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a relief, actually,” she says, and the funny thing is, she means it. Things have been so bad between them for so long, that she feels an unaccustomed sense of freedom. She went through the anger and betrayal and hurt the first time, with Rosmerta. Watching him with Gabrielle at dinner last night, she found she just didn’t have the energy for it again. She was angry, but not enraged. She was sad, but not devastated. Mostly, she was just tired.

“Relief?” he says. “What are you talking about?”

“Not to have to pretend anymore. This marriage has become painful for both of us. The kids are nearly grown. There’s no reason to keep on with it.”

“You want a divorce?”

“Under the circumstances, it sort of goes without saying, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think. Weasleys don’t get divorced.”

“Ron, this isn’t the Victorian age. Practically everyone gets divorced.”

“Tell that to Mum.”

“Really, Ron? You want to stay married to a woman you don’t love anymore so your mummy won’t be cross with you?”

“You tricked me,” he says, changing tack. “That’s unethical.”

“Unlike shagging your brother’s sister-in-law, which I suppose is fine?”

Ron’s brows furrow like he’s trying to figure something out. “Why aren’t you more upset?”

“You _want_ me to create a scene in the Ministry in the middle of the work day?”

“I want to know why you’re _happy_ our marriage is over, and not upset about Gabi.” He gives her the Auror look. “Who is he?”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Ron.”

“No, Mione, who is it? One of your pet Death Eaters? My money’s on the old man, but it could be the ferret.”

“You’re insulting, and I have to get back to work.”

“Or is it the bloke teaching Potions? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

“I’m only going to say this once, Ron. I have not been unfaithful to you. But I’ve had enough. I’m done. And what I do from here on out does not concern you, any more than what you do with that Veela—or anyone else for that matter—concerns me.”

With that, Hermione turns and walks back toward the lobby and the Floos. She might just make it to her fourth year class on time if she hurries. Last time she had to run to the loo and leave that class unattended, her niece Felicity was setting off fireworks in the classroom when Hermione got back.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be my favorite chapter of this story. No, wait, I forgot about when Lucius goes to Texas...

Severus is heading for Great Hall for dinner when he sees Granger coming down the stairs. He stops and waits for her.

“Let’s go eat in the kitchens,” she says.

“Minerva said staff were expected to take meals in the Great Hall with students, absent any special circumstances.”

“Well, I have some special circumstances tonight,” she says. “And if Minerva doesn’t like it, she can f—”

“Hermione.” He pulls her into an abandoned classroom. “Have you been drinking?”

“You bet your arse I’ve been drinking. If your husband was wanking on some French Veela’s tits, you’d be drinking, too, I’ll wager.”

“Well,” he says. “I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.”

“‘Yes, Hermione, let’s go eat in the kitchens.’ That’s how. God, for a smart man you’re kind of thick.” She claps her hands. “Or, better yet, we can get out of this godforsaken castle entirely. Go get fish and chips, or curry, or pizza, or…what do you like?”

“I like Mexican food,” he says.

“Huh,” she says. “We’d probably have to go all the way to London for decent Mexican. Whatever’s in Glasgow is likely to be disappointing.” She sighs. “Also, I may be too drunk to Apparate to London.”

“I can side-along you, if you’d allow it.” He hesitates. “But are you sure you want to? Perhaps we should just go to the kitchens, get some food in you, and go to London another time?”

“Never mind,” she says “You don’t want to go to London with me anyway. Why would you? I’m an insufferable, pedantic, know-it-all with horrid hair and mediocre tits and all I ever do is talk, talk, talk, talk, talk until people want to run screaming to escape me.” Then she bursts into tears.

Severus is completely at a loss as to how to deal with this. Is he supposed to put his arm around her? She’s a married woman. Would she take it the wrong way? He certainly can’t address the specifics of her rant—not all of them, anyway. She cries harder, and he frowns in consternation.

“Granger,” he says, but she keeps on crying. He conjures a handkerchief and hands it to her. She wipes her eyes and nose but doesn’t stop crying.

“I don’t think you talk too much,” he says. “In fact, I enjoy talking with you. Your hair is lovely, and your…erm, well, I’d very much like to have dinner with you in London, but—”

“Here comes the _but_ ,” she says. “This is the part where you make up some plausible excuse and run for the hills. Don’t bother. Just go on to dinner and can we please, please, _please_ forget we ever had this conversation?”

“What I was about to say is that I’d very much like to go to dinner with you in London, but if we’re going to eat Mexican food, we should both start out sober so we can get properly drunk on margaritas.”

“You were?”

“I was,” he assures her. 

“But you only said that about my hair to make me stop crying.”

“No, actually. I rather like your hair.”

She wipes her eyes again. “Really?”

“Really,” he smiles. “Now can we go to the kitchens? I’m starving.”

* * *

“Do you think it was unethical?” Granger asks. “Ron thought so, and now that I’m starting to cool off, I’m thinking maybe he was right.”

“Well,” Severus begins, then falls silent. She’s asking him whether it was unethical for her to Glamour herself as another woman to entrap her cheating husband, having no idea that he’s sitting here Glamoured himself. Clearly, she would think what he’s doing _is_ unethical. If her extreme circumstances don’t justify it, his own reasons, such that they are, certainly can’t.

Those reasons seemed like good ones when he came up with this scheme back home, but now that he’s here, he thinks perhaps Cissy is right and he really would have been better off just showing up as himself without all the cloak and dagger. Granger talks about him—not him, Ebarossa, but him, Snape—with admiration and, almost, could he say _affection_? She’s been writing articles and giving him posthumous credit for years, when she didn’t have to. She could have written those articles under her own name, with nothing more than a footnote acknowledging his work. But instead, she chose to give him the credit, even putting his name first. If he’d just shown up here as himself, it would have been fine. But now that he’s started down this ridiculous path, he can’t just drop the Glamour and say _surprise_ , can he? He sighs inwardly. How old is he going to be when he finally starts making good life choices?

Hermione helps herself to more shepherd’s pie and continues, apparently having forgotten that he hasn’t answered her question, “For someone like me, raised in the Muggle world, Glamours and Polyjuice and anything that allows one person to impersonate another are something of an ethical minefield. I mean, don’t people have the right to know who they’re talking to?”

“But you’re no longer in the Muggle world. The fact is, these things exist. Everyone knows it.”

“So, does that mean no one should ever trust their own eyes? I mean, you never really know who you’re talking to, do you? What if you were Polyjuiced or Glamoured right now?”

Severus feels a sharp pain in his stomach, and only years of Occlumency keep him from showing a reaction.

“Hypothetically,” she says. “I mean, I know you’re not. You wouldn’t do that to me.”

The knife in his gut twists.

“And even if you _were_ the kind of wanker who would, there’s no way you could have held a Glamour the length of that duel. Maybe you could with that potion you’re trying to develop, but that’s still only theoretical.” She takes a bite and chews, looking at him thoughtfully. After she swallows, she continues, “Polyjuice would’ve worked during the duel, but you haven’t been surreptitiously sipping on a flask like that Death Eater who passed himself off as a teacher here during my fourth year.”

Severus widens his eyes in surprise, as though the idea of this is shocking.

“Right? And Snape didn’t figure it out? Honestly, it was the only time he seemed less than brilliant. I mean, he’s a _Potions Master_ , right, and he doesn’t cotton on? Or,” she continues, as Severus works on concealing his annoyance, “maybe it _was_ you during the duel, but now you’re somebody else Glamoured or Polyjuiced as you.” She looks at him, head cocked. “Really, you could be just about anyone.” 

This time she does appear to be waiting for him to say something, so he says, “Well, hypothetically, I suppose.”

“Right. You could be George, playing an elaborate prank.”

She thinks he’s George Weasley, for fuck’s sake? He picks up his goblet and takes a sip of wine.

“Or some Death Eater who faked his death after the war.”

Severus starts coughing as the wine goes down the wrong way.

“Are you all right?” Granger asks.

He nods, and takes a sip of water.

“Or,” she continues, eyes narrowing, “you _could_ be my lying, cheating husband, trying to see if his suspicions about us are right.”

He frowns. “Your husband suspects that you and I are…that there is some…indiscretion?”

“God. He suspects everyone. You. Lucius. Draco. I’m surprised he hasn’t accused me of shagging Filch.”

Severus laughs despite himself.

“But I’m not. Not Filch, I mean. No. I mean…you know what I mean. Not with anyone. And when you asked the other night? The answer is no.”

“When I asked…? Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“That night we caught Hugo with Eudoxia Nott, you asked me if I did that sort of thing when I went to school here. Well, I didn’t. Not once did anyone ever ravish me in an alcove behind a tapestry. Never have I ever, as they say in the drinking game. And you want to know why?”

He swallows hard, nods.

“So do I,” she says. “I really do. I would absolutely _love_ to know why I’ve never inspired anyone to pull me into an alcove and snog me senseless.”

Severus knows, even as he does it, that this is _a_ _very bad idea_ , but he leans close to her anyway, and even allows a little of his own voice to come through the Glamour as he murmurs against the soft skin just below her ear, “If you were not a married woman, Granger, I would drag you into one of those alcoves and not let you out till a week from Wednesday.”

“Holy fuck,” she breathes, looking dazed. “If you really _were_ Ron, I think maybe I wouldn’t want a divorce after all.”

Severus honestly doesn’t know whether to laugh, proceed with the alcove plan, or give up this entire business before it blows up in his face and Apparate immediately back to Texas.


	14. Chapter 14

That’s what he _will_ do, he decides. Not immediately, but as soon as he’s finished out the month here, staying as far away from Granger as possible. He’ll go back to Rome, and let Lucius break the news here that he actually survived the war. Then, after it’s become old news—and after Granger’s divorce is final—he’ll come back to Britain, with no one ever having to know that Steven Ebarossa and Severus Snape were the same person.

Easy peasy, as the firsties say.

He’s not getting his hopes up, though, that Granger will ever look at him the way she did in the kitchens tonight once he’s back here as himself. He reminds himself that doing all right with women as an Englishman in America isn’t the same thing as doing all right with former Hogwarts students as the bat of the dungeons.

The knock at his office door makes him tense. Granger’s son. He made the appointment for the boy to brew with him before his dinner with a drunk and loquacious Granger. He meant to cancel it, as staying away from Granger would be easier if he kept the boy at arms’ length as well, but he forgot.

Severus has already seen the boy prepare ingredients and brew in class, so he knows he’s competent. He starts him off brewing headache remedy for Poppy, and when it’s simmering, has him prepare some of the ingredients for the potion that anchors his Glamour, as he’s about to start another batch of it.

“What are these for, sir?” the boy asks.

“Just to have on hand. They’re for several different potions.”

Hugo frowns, looking at the ingredients. “Aren’t all of these used in the potion you’ve been developing to anchor a Glamour to an object?” 

Severus’s head snaps up. 

“I read your article,” the boy says. “I didn’t know you were at the point where you were ready to brew it, thought you were still working out the arithmancy.”

Granger didn’t tell him the boy had read his theoretical work, but he supposes he should have known better than to assume he hadn’t. “I am still working on the arithmancy,” he says. “I’m not ready to brew it yet.”

Hugo looks at him with that same look Granger gets when she’s trying to work something out. He glances down at the lab journal that Severus has been working out of. “Is that it?”

“No, Mr. Weasley, that is not it,” Severus says, and snaps the journal shut. “And now I need to brew Skele-gro for your accident-prone schoolmates. It is one of the potions that will be on your NEWT exams next year. Would you like to help, or are you going to harangue me with questions until I throw you out and never invite you back?”

“I’ll help, sir.”

Severus puts the book with the Skele-gro instructions on the table, open to the correct page, and checks on the headache remedy. He takes it off the heat, and starts the prep work for the Skele-gro. He and Granger’s son work in silence for a while, save for his occasional suggestion on how to hold the knife or how finely to mince. He’s aware of the boy watching him as he makes his way through his own share of the ingredient prep quickly and efficiently.

“I thought Mum was fast with a knife,” the boy says, “but you make her look like an amateur.”

“Of course. I’ve been brewing since before your mother was born.”

“I appreciate your letting me be here, sir. I’m sorry if I was out of line earlier.”

“You can heat the cauldron now,” Severus says in his stern teacher voice, to let the boy know that all is neither forgiven nor forgotten. “I’ll finish chopping these.”

Granger was right, he thinks as he watches the boy prepare the cauldron. He’s good. But Severus isn’t sure she was right about his being better than she was. Better than she _was_ , maybe, but not better than she _could_ have been, if Severus had been able to really teach her. He can make it up to her, though, at least in part, by teaching her son now.

The boy is completely absorbed in the brewing. His form is perfect as he stirs. Maybe he _is_ better than his mother. Not in terms of intelligence or preparation or attention to detail, but in terms of instinct. There’s an element to brewing that can’t be taught, that has to be _felt_ , and this boy feels it, Severus can tell.

“I’ll bottle it after it cools,” Severus says when the fire under the cauldron is extinguished. “Your performance was,” he starts to say _acceptable_ , but changes his mind, remembering what he owes to Granger. “You did very well, Mr. Weasley.”

“Thank you, sir. Do you think I could come back again?”

Severus hesitates. It’s probably best if he doesn’t. But somehow, he finds himself saying, “Yes. Same time on Friday.”


	15. Chapter 15

_If you were not a married woman, Granger…_

Hermione startles awake, flushed and trembling. Also, she realizes, extremely wet. 

Shite.

Even though she hasn’t actually done anything wrong, she hates the idea that she’s cheating in her dreams, that Ron might have anything to accuse her of. She wants to be the innocent party in all this, with Ron cast as the clear and obvious villain. She doesn’t want there to be anything to his insinuations about her and Ebarossa.

Only it wasn’t Ebarossa who aroused her in her dream. They were her temporary colleague’s words, yes, but in the dream, it was Snape who said them, _his_ breath hot against her neck as she felt the wetness pool between her legs.

What the buggering hell is _that_ about? She never had so much as a hint of a crush on Snape when she was in school. She thought he was brilliant, sought his approval with her meticulously brewed potions and her ruthlessly edited essays—she learned quickly that he detested the verbosity that earned her Outstandings from her other teachers. She mourned when he died, but that was because he was a hero whose many sacrifices had saved them all. It was most definitely _not_ because she wanted him to pull her behind a tapestry and fuck her against the wall.

Was it?

Not then. But now? Now, the two of them are getting all tangled up in her mind. She knows it’s only because of little things about Ebarossa that remind her of Snape.

_If you were not a married woman, Granger…_

She can only hear Snape’s voice saying it now. How would Snape speak to her now, if he were alive? Would he be sneering and sarcastic, as he was when he had to play the faithful Death Eater? Or would he have gotten past it all, the way Lucius has, and be perfectly civil?

_I’m sure he didn’t hate you, Miss Granger._

Would he talk about the work she’s done whilst standing on his intellectual shoulders? Would they forget themselves talking animatedly until Padma asked them to lock up for her? Would he let her brew with him? Would he duel with her? Would he pull her into and alcove and— 

Get hold of yourself, Granger, she orders herself, but it’s no good.

Alone in the bed she’s shared with Ron for all of her adult life, she closes her eyes, lets herself imagine that Ebarossa _is_ Snape, that he’s Polyjuiced or Glamoured but that it’s _him_ behind those bland, unremarkable features. That he was the one who wanted her, his voice, low and seductive, promising, _If you were not a married woman, Granger…_

What would it feel like, being desired by a man like that? A man capable of the kind of love that outlives death. If he were alive, would he still be obsessed with Lily? Could anyone ever measure up to the woman he swore to love _always_?

It doesn’t matter, because Snape is dead and Ebarossa is just a man who happens to have nice hands and a rather sexy voice. It’s not _quite_ as impressive as she remembers Snape’s being, but he’s definitely in the running. And the way he dueled…the idea of a man with that much raw power taking her, ravishing her…

Fuck. She’s doing it again, with the dead man and the living one blurring and merging in her fantasies. 

She thinks about that Daydream Potion that George gave her for her last birthday. She never used it, because she was afraid of what it would show her. She’s pretty sure she knows what it will show her now, and her mouth goes dry when she thinks about it.

Why shouldn’t she? She can skip breakfast in the Great Hall, have a lie-in, and, well, live a little. She Summons the bottle and, hands trembling a little, swallows the contents.

* * *

“It’s Wingardium Levi _o_ sa,” she says, emphasizing the _o_.

“That’s what I _said_ , Aunt Mione!” Gideon cries in frustration, then looks like he wants to crawl under the desk when his classmates laugh. Poor little guy. He was doing so well remembering to call her Professor Weasley up to now. Fabian, who is navigating the snake-infested landscape more easily than his twin, never slips.

Starting next week, it’ll be Professor Granger they’ll have to remember to call her. She and Ron have a hearing on Friday, and Minerva will announce the new nomenclature at breakfast on Monday. Though with so many of the students being related to her, the whole school will probably know already.

She told Rose and Hugo yesterday, after classes ended, before she got drunk and talked too much to Ebarossa. Hugo seemed a little sad but not all that surprised, and gave her a hug. Rose yelled and cried and told her she couldn’t do this. Eventually, Rose stormed off and hasn’t spoken to her since. 

Hermione is glad her first class of the day is first years. It would be hard to concentrate on anything beyond the simplest spellwork after the last twenty-four hours. Including that lie-in. 

As she suspected after that dream, it was Snape the daydream potion conjured, telling her in _that_ voice exactly what he was going to do to her, then making good on every wicked promise.

What was she thinking, taking it on a work day? Honestly, she ought to have kept the potion for a post-dissolution celebration. Though she _could_ pop over to George’s store and buy another for that…

“Professor?” a little girl in a Hufflepuff tie asks.

“Yes, Miss McMillan?” Hermione says, and tries to keep her mind on what her students are doing with their feathers, and _off_ what her former professor was doing with her an hour ago.


	16. Chapter 16

“It’s just like Aunt Mione says,” Gwen Weasley fumes. She was in Severus’s office hectoring him about why she’d received _only_ an Exceeds Expectations on her essay when her cousin Hugo arrived for their brewing session.

“What does your aunt say?” Severus asks.

“That Potions is an old boys’ club. It always has been.”

“Come off it, Gwen,” Hugo says. “You’re planning to do your mastery in Arithmancy, and you’re already getting advanced tutorials in that. Why shouldn’t I have the same in Potions?”

“Your mum does advanced work in two fields,” Gwen grumbles. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t, too.”

“Very well, Miss Weasley,” Severus says with a put-upon sigh, “if you are determined to eviscerate something, you may as well have at the rats instead of your cousin and me as stand-ins for the patriarchy at large. Remove the spleens first. We’ll need those tonight.”

She gives him a beatific smile. “Thank you, sir.”

* * *

Later, during a lull in the process, while both Hugo’s and Gwen’s potions are simmering, the two cousins start complaining about Cresswell.

“Sexist git,” Gwen mutters.

“I shudder to imagine what you’ll say about me when I’ve gone, Miss Weasley,” Severus drawls.

“Only good things,” Gwen says. “You’re a great teacher.”

When Hugo coughs, it sounds suspiciously like _suck up_.

“You wouldn’t make fun if you were a witch, Hugo,” Gwen huffs. “It’s always _my dear_ this and _dear girl_ that.” She rolls her eyes. “If he was a hundred years old, it would be one thing, but for a man in his, what, probably forties, it’s kind of creepy.”

“Indeed,” Severus says, hoping _he_ ’s never been thought of as _kind of creepy_ in the classroom.

As though reading his mind, Gwen says, “You treat girls and boys exactly the same, sir.”

“Mum said you did the same when she was in school,” Hugo says.

Severus feels momentarily gratified, until it hits him that Ebarossa did not teach Granger when she was in school. Before he can say anything, Gwen says, “I didn’t know you taught here before, sir.”

“I have _not_ taught here before, Miss Weasley,” he says, fixing Hugo with the nearest he can come to a glower with this face.

“I must be confused,” Hugo says, not looking in the least confused. Looking, in truth, rather smug. “I guess she must have been talking about Professor Snape, and I got the two of you mixed up.”

“Clean up your work stations,” Severus says. “I have work to do, and all this chatter is keeping me from it.”

“We’ll be quiet, sir,” Gwen says.

“You’ll be _gone_ , Miss Weasley,” he growls.

Her dark eyes go wide, and she sets about cleaning up as quickly as she can. That insufferable boy, of course, takes his time about it, so that he’s just finishing as his cousin closes the door behind her.

“I was wondering, sir,” the boy says, glancing at the lab journal, embossed with the initials P. S. E., “what the P stands for.”

“Mr. Weasley—”

“Mum says it’s probably for one of those old school wizarding names like Perpetuus or Parsifal or Pliny.”

“You are trying my patience, boy.”

“My guess would be… Pius.”

Severus feels more than a little sick as the boy waves his wand and says the incantation that spells _Pius Steven Ebarossa_ in fiery letters in the air. “Mum did that lame _I am Lord Voldemort_ thing, too,” he laughs, and another wave of his wand rearranges the letters to spell _Severus Tobias Snape_.

“Two points to Ravenclaw,” Severus sneers, dropping the Glamour to give it the full effect.

“Nice!” the boy says, not in the least intimidated. “But seriously, _two_? I outsmart _Snape_ and I only get two lousy House points? Mum said you were always stingy with points.”

“Does your mother know about…this?”

“No,” the boy says. “Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I figured you had a reason for not wanting anyone to know it was you, and I wanted to know what it was before I said anything.”

“I do, but I’m afraid it’s not a very good one,” Severus admits with a sigh.

“Sir?”

“I was not…well liked, before my ostensible death.”

“Mum says you only had to pretend to be a git, because of Voldemort.”

“Those were your mother’s words?”

“No. She never calls you names. She,” he begins, then falls silent, lost in thought.

“She…?” Severus prompts.

“One time, when I was messing around with Glamours, showing her what I could do, I Glamoured myself as you.”

Severus raises his brows.

“And Mum…she broke down crying like she did when that old cat of hers died.”

Severus remembers her tears in the shack. _I said_ drink _, goddamn it._

“So, I wondered, if she thought that much of you, what you thought of her? And I wondered why you’d want to see her and not let her know it was you.”

“I didn’t come here only because of your mother.”

“Not only, maybe, but in part.” It isn’t a question. “The two of you have been writing articles to each other for years. She put your name on her papers. You left her your books.”

Severus is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, it’s barely above a whisper. “She saved my life.”

The boy gives him the kind of look Severus used to give Longbottom. “She’d liked to have known that.”

“I know.”

“Kind of a shite thing to do, letting her think you were dead.”

“It was,” Severus acknowledges. They’re not professor and student now. He’s the insensitive bastard who hurt Granger, and her son has every right to sit in judgment of him. “But what I’m about to do now is probably even worse,” he says, raising his wand.

The boy looks at him in confusion, then realization dawns, and—gods, he looks so much like Granger now—profound disappointment.

“Obliviate,” Severus says.


	17. Chapter 17

“Arsehole,” Hermione mutters, quill slashing so hard across the parchment that it tears and she has to repair it. It’s just her and Lucius in the staff room, so she doesn’t have to watch her language.

Lucius looks up from his marking. “Have I done something to offend you, my dear?”

“Not you. _That_ arsehole. He told Minerva he’d be here the whole month, and takes off almost a week early, leaving _me_ with his work to do.” Putting a big red T at the top of the essay doesn’t make her feel any better. She picks up another one.

“Cresswell is coming back today, Hermione. Why don’t you leave those for him?”

“Because I am not the kind of selfish, insensitive _arsehole_ who leaves other people in the lurch,” she says, mentally adding, or the kind who comes on to drunk, vulnerable, recently separated women, then does a runner in the middle of the night when he gets cold feet. “Also, because Minerva asked me to finish every thing up so _poor Dexter_ wouldn’t come back to a pile of work.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

“You know he won’t. He’s afflicted with entitlement syndrome, just like every other wizard.”

Lucius gives her a faintly reproving look.

“Present company excepted,” she allows.

“I should think so. Another wizard might think himself entitled not to have you routinely hex him into the hospital wing.”

“That was only _once_ , Lucius.” It was when they dueled the day Hermione found out Ebarossa had gone, the day after his midnight flight from the drunk, maudlin, jilted, pathetic woman he did not want to drag into an alcove. “And I said I was sorry.”

“Hermione, are you crying?”

“No.” She wipes her eyes. “Of course not.”

Lucius stands and walks around to her side of the table, sits down next to her. “You didn’t do any permanent damage, and it’s good for me to keep my skills sharp.”

“What’s _wrong_ with me, Lucius?” she sobs.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, my dear,” he says.

“You and Cissy have been happily married for more than forty years.”

“Yes?”

“So have Molly and Arthur. Bill and Fleur have been married more than twenty years. George and Angelina. Harry and Ginny. All of you. Successful at marriage.”

“Not everyone is successful at marriage.”

“Everyone I know is.”

“Padma is divorced.”

“Well, McLaggen’s a git. What do you expect?”

“Draco and Astoria are living apart. Whether they actually divorce or simply work out an arrangement is still under discussion.”

“Really?”

Lucius nods. “And of course, Blaise Zabini has been married three times.”

“Well, we all saw _that_ coming,” Hermione says.

“My point is that everyone isn’t happily married, and there’s nothing wrong with you. You were married very young, and to someone with whom you weren’t compatible in the long run.”

“Who would I be compatible with in the long run? Seriously. Can you imagine the sort of insufferable, socially impaired swot with whom I _would_ be compatible?”

“Yes,” Lucius sighs, “oddly enough, I can.”


	18. Chapter 18

“Gwen, shut _up_ about him already.”

“But he’s awful. Hugo, I learned more in that one private tutorial we had with Ebarossa than I have from Cresswell all year.”

Hugo looks up from his Runes book. “What do you mean, the private tutorial _we_ had with Ebarossa?”

“I realize I crashed the party, as it were, but I _was_ there, Hugo.”

Hugo closes the book and looks at Gwen, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa in the Ravenclaw common room. “We never had a private lesson with Ebarossa together. I had one with him, and I was supposed to go back for another, but I never did.” He frowns. “And now that I think about it, I’m not sure why. It was to have been Friday evening, the Friday before he didn’t show up on Monday morning for his classes, but I can’t remember now why I didn’t go.”

“Hugo, you did go. I was there, in his office, and he let me brew with the two of you.”

“No, I’d remember that.” His brow furrows. “I can’t remember anything about Friday after classes ended.”

“Do you remember dinner on Friday? When Felicity turned Professor Malfoy’s hair red because he gave her detention?”

“She did _what_?” 

“Hugo, you were right there. You were sitting across from me, feeling up Nott under the table like you think we’re all blind and can’t tell what you’re up to, and then—" 

“Gwen, I don’t remember any of that.”

“Nott,” Gwen calls. “Tell Hugo what my Gryffindork sister did at dinner on Friday.”

Nott looks up from the essay she’s writing. “Why? He was right there.” 

“Humor me.”

Nott shrugs. “She turned Malfoy’s hair red.”

“Fuck me,” Hugo says. “I’ve been Obliviated.”

* * *

“Hugo, are you sure your mum isn’t going to show up while we’re in there?” Gwen asks.

“She had a pile of marking as tall as Hagrid in front of her when I left.”

“All right.” Gwen puffs out a breath, then Disillusions herself. She watches as her cousin goes very still, focuses his attention on a point in the middle distance, then goes all blurry. When the Glamour solidifies, she’s looking at her Aunt Hermione.

Gwen walks on the other side of Hugo-as-Hermione, who waves at Madam Patil as they pass through the library unmolested, right into the restricted section. Once they’re in, Hugo drops the Glamour, which is tiring to hold, and they head for the section on memory charms. They stuff the books they need into Gwen’s bag, which has an undetectable extension charm on, and is Disillusioned along with the rest of her. Hugo puts the Glamour back on, and they walk past Madam Patil without incident.

“Easy peasy,” Hugo grins as the Glamour dissipates.

“You’re as bad as Felicity,” Gwen says. “You _enjoy_ breaking the rules.”

“Are you _actually_ George Weasley’s daughter?” he says. “Or was your mum cheating with Uncle Percy?”

She punches him.

“Ow.” He laughs, rubbing his arm.

“Come on. Let’s go find out who’s been messing with your mind.”

* * *

Gwen sighs and closes the last book in her stack. “Well, on upside, if I want a career as an Unspeakable after I graduate, I’ve got a head start on the preparation.”

“And on the downside, we still don’t know who Obliviated me, or why.”

“The who is Ebarossa, obviously,” Gwen says. 

“I know it seems obvious,” Hugo agrees, “but I can’t figure why he’d want to do it.” In truth, Hugo doesn’t want to believe it. He likes Ebarossa, and has been hoping for an apprenticeship with him after he graduates. If the man turns out to be a criminal who goes around Obliviating teenagers, Hugo is back to square one in his search for a mentor in Potions.

“So, do we ask Aunt Mione or Professor Malfoy?” Gwen asks.

“Mum,” Hugo says. “She’ll probably end up having to ask Malfoy anyway, but she’ll go spare if she finds out we went to him first and didn’t tell her.”


	19. Chapter 19

When Lucius arrives, he finds Hugo and Gwen with Hermione in her sitting room.

“Hugo’s been Obliviated,” Hermione says before he can even say hello.

Lucius schools his features into an expression of bland curiosity. “What makes you think that?” For an intelligent wizard, Severus can be a right idiot sometimes. Lucius wondered what sent his friend running back to America in the dark of night. No wonder Severus was too embarrassed to tell him.

Hermione and the two children take turns interrupting one another in their eagerness to get the story out. “I wanted to Floo Harry immediately,” Hermione finishes, “but Hugo doesn’t want to set the Aurors on Ebarossa if it wasn’t him.”

“It has to be him,” Gwen says. “I wish it wasn’t, because I liked him, too, but I left the two of them alone in his lab that night.”

“Upon reflection,” Hermione says, “the Aurors will only lock him up. I’d like to hang him up by his balls and kill him over the course of several days.”

“You are a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?” Lucius says.

“He Obliviated _my son_ , Lucius!”

Lucius looks at the children. “Would you mind excusing us? I need to speak with Professor Granger in private.” When they’re gone, he sighs. “I’m afraid there’s something I need to tell you.”

“You knew?” Hermione gasps.

“Not about the Obliviate, no. But about Ebarossa, that he might have a reason to do something like that.”

“What reason?”

“It was a Glamour.”

“So, the potion he was working on wasn’t still in the theoretical stage.”

“No.”

“Who is he, really?”

Lucius takes a breath, hesitates. “I need you to promise you won’t call the Aurors.”

“I most certainly will not promise that.”

“Then at least promise that you’ll wait at least twenty-four hours, until you’ve calmed down.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I won’t tell you otherwise.”

“Fine. Let the Aurors use Veritaserum.”

Lucius sighs. “I really would prefer not to, my dear, but I’m a dab hand at an Obliviate myself.”

“I’d love to see you try,” Hermione says, her wand pointing at him. But his is pointing at her, too. “Oh, my God,” she says, eyes widening in shocked realization. “Aside from Cissy, Draco, and Scorpius, there’s only one person you’d Obliviate me to protect, if he were alive. And since he’s one of the few people in the world who could have developed that potion, he must be alive.” 

Lucius lowers his wand. “Yes.”

“Ebarossa was Snape?”

He nods, watches the play of emotions across her features—wonder, joy, confusion, and then, finally, rage. She snatches up her wand and casts the Howler spell. “You _Obliviated_ him, you lying, duplicitous arsehole? I could have forgiven you for deceiving me, for making a goddamn _fool_ of me. But Obliviating _my son_? You’re a monster, Snape. I should have let that snake kill you.” She’s panting when she finishes and completes the spell. 

Then she rounds on Lucius. “You _knew_.”

“I did.”

“Why did he do it, Lucius? Why didn’t he just come back as himself, if he wanted to? The war’s been over for a quarter of a century. Young people barely know who he is, and people our age don’t really care that much anymore.”

“I told him essentially the same thing when I was trying to talk him out of this absurd scheme,” Lucius admits.

She rolls her eyes. “Does he miss playing cloak and dagger?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“It isn’t my place to speculate on Severus’s motivations,” he says, but he doesn’t have to speculate. He knows only too well the profound insecurity, bordering on self-hatred, that consumes his oldest and dearest friend. Lucius has tried to talk him out of it over the years, as have Cissy and Draco, but he clings to it the way he used to cling to his entwined guilt and infatuation over Lily Potter. “Hermione, you didn’t really mean it when you said you wished you’d let the snake kill him, did you?”

“Of course not. I was just so _angry_. He interfered with my son’s _mind_ , Lucius. People can end up brain damaged from a poorly done Obliviate.”

“I know. But obviously this one wasn’t poorly done.”

“I know,” she says. “I suppose if you absolutely have to be Obliviated, Snape’s the one least likely to bollocks it up. But he didn’t have to Obliviate Hugo. He chose to, to protect his stupid secret.”

“I know you’re angry, and you have every reason to be, but do you think perhaps you should tell him that you don’t really wish he was dead?”

“As though Snape would care one way or the other,” she scoffs. “He never could stand me. And now, I can’t stand him either.”

“You don’t mean that, Hermione. You’ve always spoken so highly of him.”

“That was when he was a dead hero. Now that he’s a live arsehole who _Obliviated my son_ , I find I feel rather differently.”

Lucius sighs. Severus really is his own worst enemy. He and Hermione were getting along so well, and Lucius was increasingly convinced that it was more than just _getting along_. He knows Severus, knows when he’s interested in a witch, and Hermione, well, she’s a Gryffindor, and one can generally read them like an open book. “What did you mean,” he asks, “when you said he made a fool of you?”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s stupid, and ridiculous and mortifying.”

“Mortifying?” He frowns in apparent confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“What he said, that night in the kitchens…and I practically threw myself at him, but he didn’t mean any of it,” she says, starting to cry now. “Everything he said while he was Glamoured was a lie.”

Lucius puts his arm around her, and she sobs harder, learning against him. “One thing you should know about Severus,” he says, stroking her hair, “is that he has a way of disguising truths he’s embarrassed to admit as lies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Lucius goes to Texas...


	20. Chapter 20

Lucius hates long-distance travel by Portkey. He’s always found it taxing, so he stops for a leisurely lunch at a lovely little place near Central Park to recover from the trans-Atlantic leg, then stops for afternoon tea in St. Louis before making the final leg of the journey to Amarillo. From there, he Apparates to Rome.

The place is even more awful than he remembers. Severus isn’t at home when he arrives, so Lucius proceeds to the ranch where Severus’s friend raises Thestrals and those dreadful bulls, the blast-end skrewts of the bovine world.

“Lucius!” Buddy says, wiping dusty hands on his jeans and extending the right one.

Trying not to think about what sort of animals—and which of their parts and/or excretions—that hand may have been touching, Lucius shakes it. “Hello, Buddy.” Releasing it, he casts a wandless, nonverbal Tergeo.

“Sev didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Severus doesn’t know I am here. He has not seen fit to return any of my owls.”

“Yeah, poor fella’s been in a state since he got back. Damn near broke his fool neck tryin’ to ride a Thestral I told him wasn’t broke yet.”

“Is he in hospital?” Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t owled, Lucius thinks, feeling some measure of contrition for the uncharitable thoughts he’s been having about his friend.

“Nah, I healed him up good as new. He’s in Austin.”

Lucius sighs. He knows why Severus will be Austin. “How long has he been there?”

“Two or three days, I think. I can give you the names of his favorite places, but he may be holed up with some woman at her place.”

“If you’d be so kind,” Lucius says. 

Buddy conjures a scrap of parchment, uses his wand to write the names of several establishments, and hands it to Lucius. “That first one’s a wizarding place, but the rest of ’em are Muggle.”

Lucius sighs again. Of _course_ they are. “Thank you,” he says. “I appreciate your assistance.” 

He certainly hopes _Severus_ appreciates his coming all the way to the arse end of nowhere trying to put right what Severus has bollocksed up. When Lucius asked Hermione to cover his NEWT-level Defence classes for a couple of days, he thought for a moment he might be headed back to the hospital wing. 

After Apparating to a wizarding hotel in Austin, Lucius checks in, then asks the concierge for restaurant recommendations that do not involve food eaten with one’s hands. 

* * *

He tries the wizarding bar first, but without much hope of success. He stays at the first two Muggle establishments only long enough to ascertain that Severus is not on the premises. Now Lucius is standing outside a third. A collection of neon signs advertise what he assumes are Muggle alcoholic beverages. The largest and most garish of the signs proclaims this to be the White Horse Saloon. Lucius conjures a handkerchief with which to push open the door, trusting he will not encounter actual horses or any other animals inside.

He catches sight of Severus sitting at the bar next to a woman with large breasts, and even larger hair. _Red_ hair, which is a bad sign. Severus usually stays far away from redheads, but apparently, he’s deep in the throes of self-hatred at present.

Lucius takes the empty barstool next to his friend. “Hello, Severus.”

“Fuck,” Severus says.

“Who’s Severus?” the redhead asks, then smiles at Lucius. “I’m Darla.”

“Of course you are, my dear.” 

She giggles at this, then turns to Severus. “Sam, honey, your friend’s kinda cute.”

Severus downs the clear liquid in the shot glass in front of him and signals the bartender, holding up two fingers.

“Se—ah, _Sam_ ,” Lucius says, then lowers his voice so Darla won’t hear, “you’re not really interested in this young lady.”

“I assure you, Lucius, that I really am. Or at least I _was_ , until a better-looking Englishman showed up and cock-blocked me.”

“There’s no need for that sort of language in front of the lady.” Lucius raises his voice and addresses Darla. “Would you be so kind as to excuse _Sam_ and me? He’s had some bad news from home, and I don’t think he’s feeling entirely himself.”

“Sure thing, honey,” she says, then pulls a pen out of her purse, scribbles something on a cocktail napkin, and slides it past Severus to Lucius. She winks at him before walking off toward the billiard table.

“Un-be-fucking-lievable,” Severus snorts. Lucius Vanishes the napkin.

The bartender sets down their shots. Severus downs his in one go. Lucius picks his up, sniffs at it, and takes a cautious sip. “What _is_ that?”

“Tequila.”

“It’s terrible.”

“More for me, then,” Severus says, and reaches for Lucius’s glass.

“And that’s quite enough of _that_ ,” Lucius says, Vanishing the liquor.

Severus glances at the bartender, who wasn’t looking. “The Americans _do_ have their own version of the Statute of Secrecy, you know.”

“Let’s go home, Severus.”

“Not till I’ve had a lot more tequila and a lot more pussy. Assuming you ever fuck off back to Scotland so I don’t have to be compared to you and found wanting by every woman here.”

“Merlin!” Lucius shakes his head. “You _are_ becoming a savage. Really, you need to come home at once, before you turn into a veritable clone of that Buddy person.”

Severus signals for the bartender.

“If you order more of that appalling whiskey, I shall only Vanish it.”

“Why?”

“Because it tastes like…well, I don’t know quite what it tastes like, but certainly nothing like whiskey ought to taste.”

“Lucius, why are you here? Did you come all this way just to torment me?”

“No, you’re doing an exemplary job of that yourself. _I_ am here to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Severus, that poor girl is miserable.”

Severus glances at the pool table, where Darla is leaning over the table, rhinestones on the back pockets of her jeans catching the light from a glowing advertisement for something called Dos Equis. “So, go cheer her up. She was obviously amenable.”

“Not _that_ girl, you imbecile. Hermione.”

Severus snorts.

“She fancies you, rather a great deal, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You are _obviously_ mistaken, and she most certainly does _not_ fancy me. Did you know she sent me a Howler?”

“Well, of course she did. You Obliviated her son. What did you expect?”

“She said she wishes she’d let the snake kill me.”

“She didn’t really mean that.”

“Go home, Lucius. I’m not going back to Britain. Let everyone think Granger got her wish and I’m dead.”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that,” Lucius says, and pulls a shrunken copy of _The Daily Prophet_ from his pocket and surreptitiously returns it to normal size.

The headline screams, _Snape Lives!_ above an unflattering picture of Severus sneering at the camera and then turning away in disgust. A smaller headline below reads, _The Tragic Love Story of Severus Snape and Lily Potter_. The accompanying photo of Lily shows her gazing adoringly up at James Potter at their wedding, while the one of Severus is from his last year at Hogwarts. At that age, skinny and gawky, his sneer suggests petulance rather than menace.

“Fucking hell,” Severus mutters.


	21. Chapter 21

Hermione is standing in front of the open wardrobe. The left side is full of her clothes, the right side empty save the few things Ron didn’t take when he moved out. He told her she could get rid of anything that was left, but she hasn’t yet. Now, she conjures a box and moves his unwanted clothes into it. She seals it, shrinks it, and puts in a drawer to take to a charity shop later.

She hesitates before spreading her clothes out over the entire bar, now less densely packed. There’s still a gaping hole in her life, but at least there won’t be one staring at her in the wardrobe when she gets dressed every morning.

There’s another hole, this one in her calendar. The rest of the adult Weasleys are at the Burrow tonight, their dinners going on as usual, only without Hermione. She doesn’t want to be there, but at the same time, it feels odd that she isn’t. She supposes she’ll drift apart from all of them, eventually, even Harry and George. They’re the ones she’ll miss. Probably not the others, even Ginny, to whom she was only close for Harry and Ron’s sake. But Harry and George? Losing them may well break her.

A shift in the wards tells her one of the children is at the door. Hugo, probably, since Rose hardly ever comes over since Hermione and Ron split. At least Rose is speaking to her now, though not very warmly.

Padma says this is normal, that her daughter reacted in much the same way when Padma and Cormack divorced, and she got over it. Padma’s invited Hermione out for drinks with some of her divorced friends next week, but Hermione hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll go. On the one hand, it might make her feel like she’s not the only one, and on the other, well, she doesn’t want to go anywhere or see anyone lately.

She goes to the sitting room and finds Rose there. “Hi,” she says.

“I need you to teach me that hair charm,” Rose says, as though everything is fine and she hasn’t been giving Hermione the mostly-silent treatment. One of the many ways she’s like Ron. She’s angry till she isn’t, and then acts as though nothing happened.

“For the Yule Ball?” Hermione asks, stuffing down the desire for Rose to acknowledge that maybe she’s been just a little bit horrible to her. She can make herself let it go when Rose does this, but has always has trouble doing the same with Ron. 

“Of course.”

“Who are you going with?” Hermione asks as they walk into her bedroom.

Rose sits down at the vanity in front of the mirror. “Don’t tell Dad, okay?”

“If it’s someone inappropriate, then I’m not going to approve either.”

“Not inappropriate. Slytherin.”

“Ah.”

“Alec Flint.”

Hermione nods. That makes sense. Like his father Marcus was, Alec is captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. He and Rose were sixth year prefects together last year, and lately they’ve been sitting together more often than not in Charms. He’s a good student, courteous, and good-looking. “You could do a lot worse,” Hermione says. 

Rose grins. “Alice Longbottom just about turned purple when she found out he asked me.” Hermione and Neville tried to nurture a friendship between Rose and Alice since the girls were babies, but they disliked each other intensely from at least the time they were able to talk.

“Is sticking it to Alice your primary motivation for dating him?”

“No, but it’s icing on the cake,” Rose grins. “So, mum’s the word till after the ball, yeah?”

“My lips are sealed. Now watch,” she says, picking up her wand and demonstrating the movements. 

“That’s bloody complicated,” Rose complains.

“Do you, or do you not want to outshine Alice Longbottom?”

Rose picks up her wand. “Show me again.”

* * *

Rose is admiring her hair in a conjured three-way mirror when an owl pecks at the window. Hermione opens it, gives the bird a treat, and detaches a special evening edition of _The Prophet_ from its leg.

Her eyes widen when she sees the headline _Snape Lives!_ She hasn’t told anyone, and told Lucius she wouldn’t. Before the twenty-four hour cooling off period Lucius requested was up, Hermione decided she’d rather just put the whole business behind her. Hugo and Gwen agreed, both of them saying they didn’t want Snape to go to Azkaban.

She skims the lead article rapidly. There’s nothing in about an Obliviate, or about Snape being sought by Aurors. She’s scanning the background piece about him and Lily when Rose stops looking at herself in the mirror and notices the headline.

“Merlin’s balls,” she says. “ _Snape_ was teaching me Potions?”

“It would appear so,” Hermione says, as though she’s learning the news for the first time herself.

“Don’t tell Dad I said so, but he was one of the best teachers we ever had,” Rose says.

Hermione feels the wards shimmer, then hears Hugo calling, “Mum?” from the sitting room.

“In here,” she says. When he gets to the bedroom, she sees he’s holding a copy of _The Prophet_. He glances at Rose, and Hermione shakes her head almost imperceptibly. 

“Nice hair,” Hugo tells his sister.

“Thanks.” Rose glances at the paper, shakes her head. “Blimey. Snape.” She surprises Hermione by kissing her on the cheek. “Thanks for the spell, Mum. Gotta run.”

“So, she’s speaking to you again?” Hugo asks when Rose is gone.

“Oh, she’s been speaking to me, in class at least, where she goes out of her way to call me Professor _Granger_ about six times per class.”

Hugo winces. “Ouch.”

“Hopefully that won’t continue now that I’ve taught her how to upstage the competition at the Yule Ball.” She gestures at the copy of _The Prophet_ in his hand. “There’s nothing about the Obliviate in there.”

“I know,” he says. “I read all the Snape stories.”

“Are you sure you haven’t told anyone? I haven’t, and I know Lucius wouldn’t.”

“I think it might be our fault. Mine and Gwen’s. One day when we were talking, we caught Felicity lurking around with a pair of those stupid Extendable Ears. She swore she wasn’t listening to us, but I’ll bet she was.”

“You were talking about Snape?”

“Yeah, but neither of us mentioned the Obliviate.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” He picks up the paper, looks at the picture of Lily gazing starry-eyed at James, and Snape sneering and sulking off to the side. “I can sort of see why he wouldn’t want to come back as himself, you know?”

Hermione nods. “I know.”


	22. Chapter 22

When Severus gets back from Austin, he finds two bottles of Hangover Remedy, a pink bakery box, and a tin of tea on his kitchen table. He downs one of the bottles immediately, which takes the edge of his throbbing headache and quells the nausea roiling his guts.

 _From Cissy_ is written in Lucius’s elegant, flowing script on top of the bakery box. When he opens it, Severus finds his favorite raspberry shortbread biscuits. When he opens the tin, he smells the blend of tea Cissy always serves when he visits because she knows he likes it.

He fills a glass with water, drinks most of it, takes a small sip from a second bottle of Hangover Remedy, then finishes the water. 

He looks up to see Buddy’s owl at the window. He lets it in, looks unsuccessfully for an owl treat, and breaks one of the raspberry biscuits in half to feed it. 

_Two of the mares just foaled_ , the note reads. _I could use a little help if you can spare the time._

The wretched man is probably just trying to _help_ him, possibly at Lucius’s urging. But on the off chance that Buddy does, in fact, need assistance, Severus will go. If he arrives to find no pressing need, he’ll come right back home.

* * *

There are in fact two Thestral foals at the ranch when Severus arrives, and one of the mares had a difficult delivery and is in need of a healing potion that Severus can brew more effectively than the town’s pathetic excuse for a veterinarian can.

When the mare is sleeping peacefully, Severus and Buddy sit on bales of hay in the barn watching her. When she doesn’t respond to the baby Thestral’s nudges, the foal makes its way on wobbly legs to where the two men are sitting, and nudges Severus.

“I’m afraid I can be of no assistance in that regard,” Severus says.

“He ain’t hungry,” Buddy says. “He just wants some attention.”

“As I said, I’m afraid I can be of no assistance,” Severus says, but unobtrusively runs a hand along the foal’s silky black shoulder.

“How was Austin?” Buddy asks.

“Much as it ever is.”

“Your friend Lucius find you?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Aw, Sev, he’s just worried about you.”

“I suppose you’re also worried about me?” Severus sneers.

“I know it’s hard for you to wrap your brain around the idea, but people worry about their friends. Especially friends who try to drink themselves to death or commit suicide by Thestral.”

“I could have ridden that animal successfully if I had been sober, which I am now.”

“You ain’t ridin’ him, Sev. If you’re set on killin’ yourself, you’re gonna have to do it on somebody else’s flying horse.”

Severus scowls and continues petting the foal on the side that Buddy can’t see.

“The way you acted when you got back from Scotland,” Buddy says, “reminded me of how you were when I first met you. I’ll never forget that night. I thought sure as hell I was a dead man till you showed up.”

Severus snorts. He was drinking alone in a bar in Amarillo, watching one of those absurd displays of masculine posturing and territoriality play out. Buddy’s idiot brother had come on to the wrong witch, and her wizard picked a fight that Buddy’s brother tried to back away from, and Buddy tried to defuse, but the man was drunk and belligerent and accompanied by three friends. It was four against two, and that was enough for Severus.

“I fucking hate bullies,” was his answer when Buddy asked later that night why he’d got involved. They were back at Buddy’s brother’s place in Amarillo, healing their wounds and drinking coffee. Severus thought it was possibly the first non-alcoholic beverage he’d consumed since arriving in Texas, but he couldn’t be sure.

“You nearly killed them,” Buddy said.

“But I didn’t.”

Buddy’s brother started snoring, and Severus flicked a nonverbal silencing spell at him. 

“You were in that war, weren’t you?” Buddy asked. “The one with that snake-faced fella with the red eyes and the stupid-ass made-up name?”

“I was.” Severus took a sip of coffee and waiting to see if Buddy recognized his picture from any of the stories about the war, but he didn’t. The American wizarding papers didn’t run as many pictures as the British ones did, and left out the embarrassing backstory about himself and Lily. Unlike Muggles, who lived in an ever-shrinking world due to technology, wizards lived much as they always had, in communities that remained more or less insular. 

“I figured,” Buddy said. “You took those four guys apart. My damn fool brother and I really owe you one.”

Over a big, greasy breakfast and hangover potion the next day, Severus accepted Buddy’s invitation to come stay at his ranch for a while. 

At first, when he got to Buddy’s place in Rome, Severus would just sit on the fence watching the Thestrals, and listening to Buddy talk, which the American did almost constantly.

After a while, Severus started helping with the animals, and occasionally talking himself. Once he started, he found he couldn’t stop. Not that it mattered, he decided, since Buddy was just some stranger, didn’t know him, didn’t know anyone from back home. Also, Severus was probably well on the way to killing himself with tequila and Dreamless Sleep, so he didn’t think he’d be around long enough for it to matter.

“Well, you’re a grown fella. I guess if you want to drink yourself to death, that’s your prerogative,” was all Buddy said. 

Apparently, Severus’s surprise showed, because Buddy said, “What? You think I don’t know any big words? I talk like this because I’m from west Texas, not because I’m stupid, you arrogant English asshole.”

Then Severus felt his lip curl up in a half smile, which turned into a full smile, and then a genuine laugh. That was definitely the first time he’d laughed since the final battle. Probably since before he killed Albus.

“Lucius thinks she is…interested in me,” Severus says now, forgetting to pretend he isn’t petting the Thestral foal.

“Lucius seems like a pretty perceptive fella,” Buddy says, and pretends not to notice.

“She said she wished I was dead.”

“You did Obliviate her kid.”

“I did.”

“And you haven’t told her you’re sorry.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“Aw, shit, Sev, don’t you know anything about women? You always gotta tell ’em you’re sorry when you fuck things up.”

Severus thinks about the last time he told a woman he was sorry. Made a damned fool of himself _begging_ for her forgiveness. “In my experience, that is ineffective.”

“Sev, I know I should probably have my wand in my hand before I say this, but…I think Lily may not have been a very nice person.”

There was a time when Buddy definitely would have needed his wand after saying that, but now, Severus realizes that he’s had the same thought himself on occasion. He’s never actually acknowledged it, but he’s had it.

After having a series of first one-night stands, then short-term liaisons, then, finally, an actual girlfriend who said she loved him and, he strongly suspected, would have married him if he’d asked her, Severus started to believe that just possibly, there was nothing inherently wrong with him. The fact that Lily hadn’t wanted him didn’t necessarily mean anything more than that she was a teenage girl who happened to like a different teenage boy and not teenage Severus, who, adult Severus has to admit, was not all that likable.

Lily wanted to be with Potter, not him, and it was easier for her to end their friendship and blame him than to just tell him. Not very nice, but she was a teenager, and if Severus knows one thing after teaching teenagers for as many years as he has, it’s that teenagers are not very nice in general.

And yet when Granger was a teenager, she set aside years of bigotry and cruelty to help the Malfoys restore their reputations. How many times did Draco call her a Mudblood? And she was still willing to help him and his parents.

An Obliviate is worse than a slur, but he still owes Granger—and her son—an apology for it.

He turns to Buddy. “You don’t need your wand. But I need to go home and write some letters.”


	23. Chapter 23

Hermione is nearly finished dressing for the Yule Ball when an owl she doesn’t recognize arrives. When she sees the handwriting on the scrolls, she feels a chill. She hasn’t seen that handwriting since her student days, but after six years of biting comments on her essays, she’ll never forget it. She removes the scroll, and sees that the one behind it bears Hugo’s name in the same script. She reaches for that one, too, but the owl nearly bites her and takes off without even waiting for a treat.

She sits down at the vanity table to read the letter.

_Dear Professor Granger,_

_I apologize for what I did to your son. It was inexcusable, and therefore I offer no excuse, only my sincerest apology._

_I apologize also for deceiving you, for allowing you to believe I was someone I was not, especially after our conversation in the kitchens. At that point, I was honor-bound to admit the truth to you, and yet I did not._

_Finally, I apologize for my inappropriate comment to you that evening. You are a married woman, and I had no business speaking to you in that manner, whether as myself or Glamoured as someone else. Had I not been Glamoured, I would never have done so, of course, since I am hardly the sort of man from whom a woman—married or otherwise—wants to hear that sort of thing._

_Lucius tells me that you, your son, and your niece are willing to keep my secret, and that I would be on the way to Azkaban if not for the three of you. You have my gratitude._

_Sincerely,_

_SS_

She reads the letter a second time, and then a third. As she finishes the third reading, she feels a tremor in the wards. She folds up the letter and puts it in her bag. “I’ll be right out,” she calls, then puts on her earrings and applies her lipstick. 

Hugo is in the sitting room in his dress robes, a letter in his hand.

“Snape?” she asks, looking at it. 

He nods. “He wrote to you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to write back?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Probably. Are you?”

“Of course. I still want that apprenticeship.”

She laughs. “You’re shameless!”

“Just ambitious. The Hat saw that when it gave me my choice of Houses.”

“The Hat?” Hermione stares at him. “You told us it offered you the same choice it did me, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor.”

“No, I told you it offered me a choice. That’s all I said.” Hugo looks at her and grins as realization dawns. “You three Gryffindors just made an assumption. None of you ever bothered to confirm it.”

“Oh, my God,” she laughs. “I cannot _wait_ to see the look on your father’s face!”

“Wait till Boxing Day to tell him, if you don’t mind. I think he’s getting me a new broom for Christmas and I don’t want him changing his mind.”

Hermione laughs again. “I wonder if Rose had a choice.”

“Everyone has a choice,” Hugo says. 

“Not everyone. Your father and grandmother say—” 

“They _say_ ,” Hugo scoffs. “They probably just don’t want to admit what their other choice was. First thing we do every year in Ravenclaw is find out what other House the firsties were offered. It helps with getting the pecking order established right off.”

“That’s barbarous!”

“Maybe, but it worked to my advantage.”

“God, no wonder you and Snape hit it off.”

“So, you’re not mad at him anymore?”

“I’m furious with him. He _Obliviated_ you.”

“Tell him you’ll forgive him if he takes me on as an apprentice.”

“Why would a conniving child like you choose Ravenclaw instead of the House you clearly belong in?”

“Dad and Gran would have hated it. I wanted to keep the peace.” He grins. “And get better Christmas and birthday gifts.”

“George would have thought it hilarious.”

“I know. He told me about him and Fred.”

“In which House is the lucky girl you’re taking to the ball?”

“Gods, Mum, I thought you knew Nott was my girlfriend now.”

“And you still call her Nott?”

“If your name was Eudoxia, would you want people calling you that?”

“Perhaps,” Hermione suggests, “instead of agreeing with her that it’s awful, what she really wants is for you to tell her that it isn’t.”

Hugo ponders this. “You think?”

“Only one way to find out.”


	24. Chapter 24

“I’m so glad to hear it,” Lucius says when Hermione tells him about Snape’s letter. They’re standing at the edge of the dance floor, watching the room gradually fill as more couples enter. “Are you going to forgive him?”

“Eventually,” she says, “though I’ll let him twist in the wind a bit first.”

“Not too long, if you’ll forgive the unsolicited advice. Given Severus’s history, a little twisting goes a long way.”

“Where’s Cissy?” Hermione asks, wondering how much twisting might be enough.

“With her adoring fans,” Lucius says, gesturing to a table nearby where a group of third year girls is peppering Narcissa with questions about beauty spells. Then Lucius sputters, “Oh, for the love of Nimue!”

Hermione follows his eyes to the entrance, where Scorpius Malfoy and Felicity Weasley have just walked in.

“If my grandson marries that little harpy, I shall retire immediately to the continent and leave Draco as head of the family to deal with her,” Lucius declares.

Hermione laughs. “They’re fourth years. It’s just a school dance.”

“Even so,” Lucius glowers. “That child is a menace. Do you have any idea the things she’s done in my class?”

“Some idea, yes. I do teach at this school, you know.”

“She’s probably on her best behavior for you because you’re her aunt.”

“She's probably _worse_ for me because I’m her aunt.”

Scorpius and Felicity approach them. 

“Good evening, Grandfather, Professor Granger,” Scorpius says.

“Good evening, Aunt Mione, Professor Malfoy,” Felicity says with an angelic smile.

“Good evening,” Lucius says stiffly. “If you’ll excuse us?” With that, he sweeps Hermione onto the dance floor.

“They make a striking couple, don’t you think?” Hermione asks.

“I shall strike _you_ if you keep laughing at me, Miss Granger.”

“I’m awfully sorry.”

“I don’t actually think you’re the least bit sorry.”

“Speaking of apologies,” she begins. “Why shouldn’t I wait too long to accept Snape’s?”

Lucius sighs. “You know most of the story. Everyone does, which is part of the problem. His private life has been put on display before the entire wizarding world, and it isn’t a very happy story.”

“He wrote something in his letter about his not being the sort of man from whom,” she begins, then realizes it won’t make sense without the context of what he said that night. “Anyway, he implied that he believes, well, that I, that is, that he—” 

“That you wouldn’t be attracted to him?”

She looks at a spot just past his shoulder. “Yes.”

“But you are.”

She hesitates. “Yes.”

“You need to tell him that.”

She forces herself to look at him. “He has to know. I was so bloody obvious.”

“I assure you, Hermione, he does not know. You could write it in flaming letters above the Astronomy Tower and Severus would find a way to misinterpret it.”

“He can’t be that insecure, Lucius. He’s brilliant, and powerful, and even—when his wit isn’t turned against you—funny.”

“He is exactly that insecure. He is not, after all, a conventionally handsome man.”

Hermione remembers the daydream charm, the way she responded when she could see Snape’s own not-conventionally-handsome face in place of the Glamoured one, and the memory of his hands and his mouth on her makes her shiver. “Conventionally handsome is not a requirement.”

Lucius smiles. “It will take some persuading before he is able to see himself the way you see him. Writing that letter to you…that was more than I thought he would do. I really did think he was just going to sit there in that awful little town and drink that undrinkable whiskey and sulk.”

“What awful little town?”

“Rome, Texas. It’s just outside Amarillo, in case you should have it in mind to do any traveling over the Christmas hols and wish to visit a place with inedible food and the fragrance of cow dung in the air.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've seen Severus in Texas, then Lucius in Texas. Next up, Hermione in Texas!


	25. Chapter 25

Severus is in the midst of a full-blown panic. She’s coming here. She’s on her way here _right now_. He had time to shower and shave, and to clean the place up a bit and make tea, but no more than that. He checks the time. Fifteen minutes. He could still Apparate to Amarillo or Austin, let her arrive to find an empty house.

He paces restlessly, then snatches her letter up from where it lies on the kitchen table, next to tea under a stasis charm and the last of Cissy’s raspberry biscuits. As though this is a social call, he thinks in disgust. He should put them away. She isn’t here for tea and biscuits. She’s here to tell him off. 

He reads her letter again.

_Dear Severus,_

_I accept your apology for deceiving me. I was angry and embarrassed—_ What does _she_ have to be embarrassed about? he wonders _—but we can get past that. What you did to my son will take me longer to get over. I do appreciate your apology, however, and I think we should talk in person._

 _I will be at your place at six this evening. I am already on my way, sending this from en route. If you flee like a coward before I arrive, and I’ve taken all these long-distance Portkeys for nothing, I shall be_ very _cross._

_Hermione_

Bossy thing. Essentially _ordering_ him to be here when she arrives. Flee like a coward indeed. Who does she think she is, talking to him that way? But his first thought _was_ to flee like a coward, wasn’t it? How does she know him so well? If Lucius has been coaching her in how to deal with him, he will kill the man. He really will.

Eight minutes. Flying fucksticks.

The crack of Apparition startles him. She’s early. Of course she is. Trying to forestall a last-minute escape, no doubt. He runs a hand through his hair, takes a deep breath, and opens the door.

“Granger,” he says.

“Snape,” she replies coolly, her expression guarded.

She wrote _Severus_ in her letter, but apparently, they’re back to surnames. Though he was the one who started that, wasn’t he?

He steps back. “Come in.”

She does, and looks around briefly. Her eyes come to rest on the tea and biscuits.

“Tea?” he asks.

“Yes, thank you.” She sits down at the kitchen table. He sits across from them and pours tea. He knows how much milk she takes from having tea with her while Glamoured. She eats a biscuit and watches him. After a silence so long it’s almost physically painful, he forces himself to say, “I’m glad you came.”

“Are you? Why?”

He sighs. So, it’s going to be like this, is it? “I know what I did to your son is unforgivable,” he begins.

“Difficult to forgive. Nothing is unforgivable. Even two out of the three Unforgivables. Harry and I used Imperius when we were hunting Horcruxes, and your Avada on the Astronomy Tower was at Albus’s request, and instrumental in our victory. Hard to imagine a scenario that would justify Cruciatus though.”

“Extracting information from an enemy?”

“Debatable.”

“Punishing someone fool enough to Obliviate your son?”

She almost smiles at that. “Hugo prefers you pay a less painful price. At least I hope it’s less painful. Knowing you, it’s hard to say.”

“What price?”

“An apprenticeship.”

“I’ve never taken an apprentice.”

“I know. Which only ups the prestige factor for my son, being your first and only apprentice in, what, forty years as a Master?”

He grimaces. “Is reminding me of my advanced age part of the punishment?” 

“Not so advanced for a wizard. Not too advanced to trounce me in a duel.”

He considers telling her that he had to work at that, but doesn’t. Instead, he says, “We had plans to go for Mexican food at one point, but never did.”

She has the good grace not to say, _No, because you Obliviated my son and fled the country, you fuckwit._ Instead, she just waits. She’s going to make him ask her properly. Fair enough, he supposes. She did travel all the way here from Scotland. The least he can do is invite her to dinner.

“Would you join me for dinner at a Mexican restaurant here?” he asks.

“That would be… _acceptable_ ,” she finishes with a smirk.

He stands and holds out his arm for side-along. “May I?”

She stands as well and steps toward him, takes his arm.

* * *

“It’s embarrassing,” Granger says, and takes a sip of her margarita. “He’s seventeen years old, and he figured it out before I did.”

Severus snorts. “How do you think I felt?”

“You know what he’s going to say when I tell him?”

He lifts a brow inquiringly.

“We can’t all be sorted into Ravenclaw, Mum,” she mimics. Obviously something she’s heard a time or two before.

“We were both given the option,” Severus points out.

“Yeah, but he was the one smart enough to take it.” Her eyes focus on the middle distance for a moment. “I wonder how differently things would have played out if either of us had made that choice.”

“A ‘road not taken’ question I’ve spent many years pondering,” he admits. “I also wonder how things would have played out if I’d had the courage to return to Hogwarts without a Glamour.”

“I’d wager the students would have been better behaved.”

“Indeed,” he agrees, “though something tells me a certain fourth year would not have been in the least intimidated.”

Granger smiles. “Probably not.”

“Her father and uncle never were,” Severus says. 

“I’ll be damned,” Granger says. “George was telling the truth.”

“About?”

“He said you liked him and Fred. You pretended not to, but you did.”

“They were brilliant. In a world without the Dark Lord, I may well have offered one or both of them an apprenticeship.”

She looks at him, and he can tell it’s just about killing her not to say, _And speaking of apprenticeships…_

“I’m rather surprised that your son wants to apprentice with me, given what I did.” Severus forces himself to say.

“But he does.”

“And you would have no objection?”

“It won’t be up to me,” Granger says. “He’ll be of age.”

“I know. But…is it what you would wish for him?”

“It is,” she says.

“Then you may tell him that if he scores an Outstanding on his Potions NEWT, the apprenticeship is his.”

Granger smiles. “Thank you. He’ll be thrilled. But you should write and tell him that yourself, after he writes to ask you formally. I’m not one of those mothers who wants to run their children’s lives.”

Severus takes a drink of his margarita. “I thought that was why you came all this way.”

Granger bites her lip and shreds a paper cocktail napkin. Before she works up the nerve to say whatever it is she wants to say but can’t quite bring herself to, the server appears at their table. 

“Another pitcher?” the young woman asks, pouring the last of the icy, green-gold mixture into Granger’s glass.

“Yes, please,” Severus says at the same time Granger says, “No, thank you.”

The server waits.

“No, thank you,” Severus says, and the woman leaves their bill and departs.

“I want my wits about me this time,” Granger says. She toys with the last bite of enchiladas left on her plate. “That was really good.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he says. _Why_ does she want her wits about her, he wonders. Is she worried she’ll do something she regrets? Does she not want him? _She Portkeyed halfway across the world to see you,_ the rational part of his brain tells him _. Of course she wants you_. But the other part of his brain, the part that makes him do asinine things like hiding behind a Glamour and Obliviating people who figure it out, says otherwise.

“Severus?”

“Yes, Hermione?” he replies, using her given name for the first time when not hiding behind the Glamour. 

“Did you mean it? That night in the kitchens.” She licks her lips, looking nervous. “What you said you’d do, if I wasn’t a married woman?” 

He hesitates. He absolutely meant it, but he also meant what he wrote in that letter, that he’d never have said it without the Glamour. 

“Because I’m not one anymore,” she says.

Severus swallows. Is he supposed to offer condolences on her divorce, or tell her he’s glad? Because he is. Damned glad. But it seems a rather tasteless thing to say.

“You were wrong about what you said in your letter,” she continues. “I can’t speak for women in general, of course, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re exactly the sort of man from whom I want to hear that sort of thing.”

He stares at her, brave little lioness that she is. He spent much of his life risking torture and death at the Dark Lord’s hands, but this kind of courage is something he’s never possessed. 

“Severus?” She bites her lip. “Did I Portkey halfway across the world, to the arse end of nowhere, only to make a complete fool of myself?”

“You did not.” When her eyes soften and she smiles in response to this, he reaches across the table and takes her hand before pitching his voice _just so_ and practically purring, “I meant what I said. I wanted you that night, and I want you now.”

Her breath hitches and her eyes darken as her pupils dilate. 

“I don’t suppose there are any alcoves in your house?”


	26. Chapter 26

It may not be an alcove, but the alley behind the restaurant turns out to be a more than satisfactory substitute for their first kiss. Hermione gasps as she feels the hardness of the bricks behind her back and insistent pressure of Severus’s mouth against hers. When her lips part and his tongue slips inside, she groans and twines her arms around his neck.

She feels almost lightheaded when the kiss ends and his lips trail down her jawline to her neck. “I hope you don’t have any plans until at least a week from Wednesday,” he murmurs against her ear, and she practically whimpers as her fingers tangle in the silky hair at the back of his neck.

When he withdraws and looks at her inquiringly, she realizes that was an actual question. “My Portkeys are open return,” she says. “I was prepared to return tomorrow if things didn’t work out, but I can stay until term resumes if they do.”

“Despite whatever insulting things Lucius has told you about the place, I hope you’ll stay until the end of the holidays,” he says, and moves one of his legs between hers.

“Lucius is a dreadful snob,” she replies, almost shuddering at how good his thigh feels pressed against her core. “I know better than to let anything he says influence me.” She grinds a little against him, and feels him shudder in return. “Though I only have one night booked at the hotel in Amarillo.”

His expression shifts, and he steps back. “Would you like me to see you back to your hotel?” he asks.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Hermione huffs. “I only booked the hotel because I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“I likewise did not wish to assume,” he says with that excessive formality she’s beginning to realize he adopts when he’s on uncertain emotional ground.

Hermione takes a breath and looks at him levelly. “Severus, this running hot and cold thing is _not_ going to work for me. I told you I want you, then I _showed_ you. Now stop being ridiculous and take me home.”

“Are you always this bossy, witch?”

“Usually,” she admits, then adds with a sly smile, “but not always. From time to time, I might like it if _you_ were a bit bossy.”

Her smile widens at his startled expression, then fades as his eyes glitter rather dangerously and he murmurs in a voice that practically liquefies her insides, “I assure you, Hermione, that will not be a problem.”

Fucking hell, she thinks as his teeth graze her collarbone. The man used to be a Death Eater. She really is going to have to learn to think before she speaks. 

“I’m going to take you home now.” He pulls her close for side-along. “And then I’m going to do unspeakable things to you.”

When the dizzying whirl of Apparition ends, Hermione says, “I’d just as soon you do speak of them, if you wouldn’t mind. Your voice…gods, Severus, I think you could make me come without even touching me.”

“An intriguing experiment, but one for another time, I think.” He unbuttons her blouse with a spell and pushes it off her shoulders. “Right now, I’m going to touch every part of you.”

“Yes, please,” she sighs as he unfastens the front clasp on her bra—black lace, just in case things turned out the way she was hoping.

“Repeatedly, in the case of my favorite parts,” he murmurs, caressing her breasts as her nipples harden under his fingers. “With running commentary, as requested.” When his lips close over one peak, Hermione’s hands move to the back of his head, holding him there as she arches against him. He pulls away, then chuckles at her growl of frustration. “Patience, little lioness. I’m only moving to the other side. After which you’ll need to release your death grip again, because I’ll be moving lower.”

“Lower?” she whispers.

“Lower,” he confirms. “Shall I tell you how much lower? And exactly what I’m going to do when I get there?”

All she can manage in response to this is a strangled moan.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

* * *

“I may never walk properly again,” Hermione complains, rubbing her backside.

Severus dismounts from his Thestral. “I did tell you that we should turn back half an hour before we did, but you insisted.”

“I know,” she sighs. “It was so much fun though. Much less terrifying when you can see what you’re flying on.” She strokes the animal’s glossy black coat. “I wish I didn’t have to go back tomorrow.”

Severus doesn’t say anything, and she can tell he’s preoccupied as he grooms both of their Thestrals, quick and efficient from much practice.

They spent the first few days of her holiday mostly in bed—and on various other surfaces around his house. Eventually, they ventured out so Hermione could see a bit of Amarillo and then Austin. She met Buddy and his Thestrals, and attended her first wizarding rodeo, where she watched half of the events through the spaces between her fingers that were covering her eyes. It wasn’t until today that the two men could coax her onto a Thestral herself, memories of that harrowing ride the night of Harry’s seventeenth birthday not exorcised until today.

They stop for takeaway tacos on the way back from the ranch, loath to waste any of the few hours they have left together sitting in a restaurant.

Hermione’s owl is sitting on the front porch when they get back to the house. There are two scrolls attached, one for her and one for Severus, both in Hugo’s writing. “I assume that’s his formal request for an apprenticeship,” Hermione says, handing Severus his scroll.

“No, he sent that the day after you arrived.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I thought you were the kind of mother who didn’t want to run her children’s lives?”

“Hmpf.”

“Don’t you want to know how I responded?”

“Not if you’re going to act like you’re my son’s age and tease me, no, thanks all the same.” She opens her letter and reads it. 

_Dear Mum,_

_Thanks for encouraging me to ask Snape for an apprenticeship. He said yes, contingent on my earning an O on my Potions NEWT. So…done deal!_

_I hope you’re having a good time on your travels in America. I don’t know if you’re anywhere near Texas, but I took a chance and sent your letter and Snape’s by the same owl. If you should happen to see him, tell him I said hi._

_Hugo_

_PS I may have used up some of your Potions stores. Hope you don’t mind too much._

_PPS I won’t say anything to Dad or Rosie or Gran about where you spent the hols._

Cheeky brat.

“I said yes,” Severus says.

Hermione waves Hugo’s letter. “I know.”

“You’re not going to spoil our last night pouting, are you?” Severus asks in _that_ voice, the one that always makes Hermione shiver.

“I’m not pouting,” she replies in her cool, formal Professor Granger voice. She is not one of Pavlov’s dogs. She is not going to hurl herself into his arms every time he uses that tone. God, how stupid is she, telling a sneaky, manipulative Slytherin the effect it has on her? “I wonder how my son will like West Texas.”

“American women love a bloke with an accent. He might not even have to Glamour himself as Lucius Malfoy—though judging from the reception Lucius got when he visited, it’s not a half bad strategy.”

“So, Lucius told you about that?” Hermione asks, thawing a little.

“Of course he did. The man’s vanity knows no bounds,” Severus snorts. “Though Apprentice Weasley may not end up in Texas after all.”

“I know. He said your offer was contingent on an O on his Potions NEWT.”

“That will be no impediment for him. I meant that I may no longer be living here once he graduates.”

“No?”

“No.”

Hermione waits. Even after barely two weeks together, she’s learned that Severus is more likely to talk about things if she lets him do it in his own time, without too much prompting.

“I’ve been thinking of returning to Britain. Permanently.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Are you?” he asks, in that cautious, courteous, formal way that signals insecurity.

“Severus, if I was just out for a holiday shag, don’t you think I’d have chosen someone my son wasn’t planning on studying under?” Hermione asks, and puts her arms around his neck. “Honestly, for a smart man, you can be rather thick.”

He kisses her. “Does this mean you’re finished pouting?”

“You’re infuriating!” she says, struggling to extricate herself from his embrace, which only tightens as she pushes at him.

“So infuriating that you wouldn’t want me as a colleague?”

She stops her pretend struggling. “What?”

“Cresswell has one year left on his contract. Minerva asked if I’d like to come back at the end of next year.”

“I thought you hated teaching?”

“I did when I was spying on the Dark Lord. My brief stint at Hogwarts this year was much less stressful, even if the students weren’t as terrified of me. Besides, with your son as my apprentice, I’d have someone else to do the tedious and grubby parts of the job.”

Hermione throws her arms around him and kisses him enthusiastically.

“Does this mean you like the idea?”

“I love the idea.”

“And that you’re finished pouting so we can finally shag?”

“Git.” She smacks his arm. “But yes, we can finally shag. After all, you’re going to spare me all those exhausting trans-Atlantic Portkeys, _and_ give my son the prestige of being your first ever apprentice.”

“At this point, I might promise every Weasley at Hogwarts an apprenticeship if that’s what it takes to get into your knickers, Granger,” he growls in her ear even as his hand makes its way to said knickers without impediment.

“You’re lucky that Felicity prefers Transfiguration to Potions,” Hermione laughs, moving her thigh against his rapidly hardening cock.

“Gods.” Severus shudders. “I didn’t think about _that_ Weasley.”

“Less talking, more shagging,” she demands, tilting her head up and offering her lips, which part under his. He can’t help the groan that escapes him, and when she hears it, she presses herself against him, her hands sliding into his hair and her mouth opening so he can plunder it thoroughly.

“I thought you liked hearing me talk,” he murmurs against her neck.

“Depends on what you’re saying.”

“Indeed,” he says, pitching his voice lower and beginning to tell her exactly what he knows she wants to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue is left after this...


	27. Chapter 27

Epilogue I: 18 Months Later

Hemione and Gwen are the only ones on the ground waiting for the owls to arrive. Felicity, Fabian, Gideon, George, Angelina, and Severus are flying around playing something vaguely resembling Quidditch. In theory, Hugo and Eudoxia Nott are playing as well, but since they only recently got back together after spending most of seventh year broken up, they’re mostly just making eyes at each other from their respective brooms. Gwen’s too nervous, says there is no way she could concentrate sufficiently to stay on a broom until she knows her NEWTs results.

“I was the same with both the OWLs and NEWTs,” Hermione says, tucking a lock of hair behind her niece’s ear.

“I know,” Gwen says, a smile finally banishing her worried frown.

“Because your dad and Uncle Ron told you?”

“They acted it out, actually, with Dad doing this falsetto that sounded nothing like you, but was pretty funny all the same.”

Hermione smiles. When she and Severus got together, it took some of the sting out of Ron’s infidelity, and once he finally stopped saying, “But, Merlin’s balls, Mione, _Snape_?” the two of them settled into a fairly amicable co-parenting relationship. They’ll never be the kind of friends they were at Hogwarts, and they don’t triple-date with Harry and Ginny, but Hermione is no longer banned from family celebrations at the Burrow. 

Getting her un-banned took an intervention on the part of Rose, Hugo, Gwen, and Felicity, who cornered Molly—none of the other Weasleys had any problem with Hermione—and demanded an end to her exile or they’d be boycotting family events themselves.

Molly sputtered and lectured until Felicity cast her modified version of Hermione’s Avis spell. Using the same wand movements Hermione taught her, but with the incantation _Corvus_ , Felicity conjured a dozen large, sleek crows that ranged themselves around her like some kind of avian Praetorian guard, their beady black eyes trained on Molly. “I’ve always wondered, Gran,” Felicity mused, “why they call it a _flock_ of birds, but a _murder_ of crows.”

George and Severus laughed so hard when Hugo told them about it that neither was capable of speech for several minutes.

Gwen’s gasp makes Hermione look up, where the owls are swooping down toward them. 

“Oh, Aunt Mione, I can’t look,” Gwen moans as she removes her scroll. “You tell me.”

Hermione unrolls it as the others start leaving their game and descending. “Eight Outstandings.”

Gwen expels a relieved breath.

Hugo, Eudoxia, and Felicity land and pick up their scrolls. George, Angelina, and Severus descend as well, leaving only the twins still racing around on their brooms. Severus sits down next to Hermione.

As soon as Hugo unrolls his, he grins and hands it to his stepfather. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to make good on your promise, Severus.”

Severus reads it, then extends his hand. “Congratulations, Apprentice.”

Hermione reads her son’s scores and beams. Hugo’s and Eudoxia’s are nearly as impressive as Gwen’s—seven Outstandings and one Exceeds Expectations each—and the three Ravenclaws are soon comparing their recollections of the exams to figure out how Hugo could have missed an O in Transfiguration and Eudoxia could have missed one in Runes.

“Ha!” Felicity shouts in triumph. 

“Three Acceptables, Felicity?” Angelina reads over her shoulder. “You’re happy about that?”

“But I got an E in Transfiguration and an O in Potions. Those are the only ones I care about.” She thrusts the parchment at Severus. “And now _you_ have to come back to Hogwarts to teach me for NEWTs, Uncle Severus. You said if I got an O on my Potions OWL that you would.”

“That’s because I never imagined that you _would_ get an O,” he lies smoothly, not having told her that he unofficially accepted Minerva’s offer before Felicity’s fifth year even began. “And I am _not_ your Uncle Severus.”

“Yes, you are,” Gwen says. “Aunt Mione will always be our aunt, divorce or no, and now that you and she have finally got married, you’re our uncle.” Gwen, like Hugo and Rose, just calls him Severus, but she thinks it’s funny that Felicity insists on calling him _Uncle_ Severus, much to his consternation.

Felicity plops down on his lap. “That’s right, Uncle Severus.”

“Get off me, Miss Weasley, this instant!” Severus commands.

Felicity grins. “You can’t call your own niece Miss Weasley when we’re not in school.”

“Get _off_ , Felicity.”

She stands up. “There, was that so hard, Uncle Severus?” She whistles for her owl. “I need to tell Scorpius about my OWLs and find out what he got.”

“Lucius said he put up wards to keep your owl out,” Severus says.

Felicity tosses her black ringlets and laughs. “Professor Malfoy is so funny.”

Though he continues to deny it, Lucius has grown rather fond of Felicity, particularly since the episode with Molly and the crows. He’s never liked Molly, ever since she was an overbearing fifth year prefect who delighted in taking House points from Slytherin when Lucius was a firstie.

George grins. “Severus, that owl of hers spends so much time at Malfoy Manor, it thinks it’s a peacock.”

* * *

Epilogue II: Twelve Years Later

The albino peacocks preen and display plumage that is surpassed only by the riot of white taffeta and pearls that adorns the bride’s full skirt and the train that floats an inch or so above the ground behind her. When Felicity and her father reach the raised dais in front of the crowd, George Weasley leans down to kiss his daughter before taking the seat next to his wife in the front row.

Across the aisle, the groom’s parents and grandparents, each more blond and beautiful than the next, look on fondly. 

After the ceremony, there is champagne and caviar and lobster and, in Severus’s words, “Every sort of overpriced, overrated food imaginable.”

“A lot of it paid for by my Thestrals,” Buddy says proudly.

“ _Our_ Thestrals,” Lucius corrects. When Lucius learned how much money could be made in breeding them, he invested in the operation, which has significantly expanded and is turning an impressive profit. 

“Your granddaughter-in-law’s a right pretty girl, Lucius,” Buddy says as the three men watch Scorpius and Felicity open the dancing.

“She’s a menace,” Severus says. 

“She’s magnificent,” Lucius beams. “I always liked that girl.”

* * *

Hermione stands at the edge of the dance floor watching her grown children. Rose twirls past with her boyfriend of the moment, a sweet young man who has no idea that his most attractive quality was that he was dating Alice Longbottom and Rose couldn’t resist the pleasure of breaking them up. Ron was relieved when Rose broke up with Alec Flint, but now that she has half a dozen exes in her ruthless wake, he’s willing to see her settle down with anyone, even a Slytherin.

Hugo and Eudoxia Nott have broken up and been back together at least three times. They’ve just resumed the _on_ portion of their on-again-off-again cycle, so Eudoxia is Hugo’s date to the wedding today. Felicity says they’re the stupidest smart people she knows. “For all that you Ravenclaws are supposed to be so bloody brilliant,” she told Hugo once, “sometimes I think you couldn’t find your own arses with a Point Me spell. Everyone _else_ can see that you love her, you idiot.”

Ron and Gabrielle did the same on-again-off-again thing as Hugo and Eudoxia until Gabrielle finally had enough and went back to France. Soon after, Ron married a Hufflepuff who was five years behind him at Hogwarts, a widow with three young children who idolize their stepfather. Hermione doesn’t remember her from school, and neither does Harry. She suspects Ron only says he does, but that isn’t her business, and they seem happy enough.

Now that their children are grown and they’re both married to other people, Hermione and Ron get along pretty well. Hermione doesn’t go to the Burrow all that often, but Molly is pleasant when she does, especially now that Ron’s wife is expecting twins. That family and twins! Hermione dodged the DNA bullet there, she realizes.

Hermione and Severus talked about having a child, but the conversation wasn’t a long one. Hermione didn’t really want any more children, but would have had one if Severus wanted to. He finally decided he didn’t need his own brat when he was already saddled with _all those Weasley brats_ , as he called his adoring stepchildren, nieces, and nephews in feigned exasperation. 

“Don’t forget _that Potter brat_ ,” Lucius reminded him at the time, since Albus Severus Potter and Hugo Weasley became much closer friends during their last year at Hogwarts, and Al ended up getting a lot of free Potions instruction during Hugo’s apprenticeship. This comes in handy for an Auror, since one never knows when a little Polyjuice will come in handy on the job.

“Perish the thought,” Severus sneered, refusing to admit that he found the boy not entirely objectionable, despite his being James Potter’s grandson.

Severus retired from teaching when Hugo achieved his mastery, but continued taking apprentices, finding that he did not at all mind teaching when it was at mastery level. Fabian Weasley earned his mastery the year before, and Severus’s new apprentice is Alice Longbottom’s youngest sister. The idea that he would take one of Longbottom’s children as an apprentice was a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately, Severus decided that any son of Tobias Snape ought to know better than to judge someone by who his or her father happened to be.

* * *

Hermione smiles when Gwen joins her at the edge of the dance floor. She doesn’t ask why Gwen isn’t dancing. Gwen, with her terrifying intellect and double mastery in Runes and Arithmancy, reminds Hermione a great deal of her younger self—except that Gwen is smart enough not to marry a man who isn’t her intellectual equal. Not that Hermione regrets her marriage to Ron. How could she, when it brought her the children she loves?

She watches Gwen watching the dancers. Most of the time, her niece acts like she doesn’t care if and when she meets Mr. Right. When Molly starts in about how “Of _course_ you’ll meet someone, dear,” Gwen puts her hands over her ears and sings, “La-la-la, I can’t hear you.”

Gwen watches her sister and Scorpius, and a little sigh escapes her.

“At the risk of sounding like your grandmother,” Hermione says, “I do think you’ll find someone worthy of you someday.”

“Maybe,” Gwen says. “But if I don’t, I’m not going to settle.”

Hermione nods. She understands. Now that she’s married to Severus, she couldn’t be content with anything less either.

Severus and Lucius join them. Severus holds his hand out to Gwen. “May I?”

“Dance with the old maid because no one else wants to?”

“Witches aren’t considered old maids until they’re at least fifty,” Severus says. “And moreover, that is a sexist term I thoroughly dislike—and wouldn’t expect to hear from you, of all people, Gwen.”

“Right you are,” she agrees with a smile, taking his arm. “Thanks for reminding me.”

Lucius signals a passing waiter as Severus and Gwen join the dancers. He lifts two champagne flutes from the tray and hands one to Hermione. “To my grandson and his wife,” he says, tapping his glass to hers as Scorpius and Felicity whirl past with a swirl of white taffeta.

“You’ve shown good grace in bowing to the inevitable, Lucius,” Hermione says. “I’ll give you that.”

“My dear, what can you possibly mean by that? My granddaughter-in-law is a lovely girl of whom I’ve always been terribly fond.”

Hermione grins at him over the lip of her champagne glass. “And Tom Riddle was just a political reformer who took things a bit too far?”

Lucius widens his gray eyes. “Surely you are not comparing that sweet girl to the Dark Lord, Hermione?”

“You mean the way _you_ did for basically the entire time she was at Hogwarts?” Hermione laughs. “You once threatened to leave the country if Scorpius married her.”

Lucius brushes an invisible piece of lint from his lapel. “I most certainly did not.” He takes a sip of his champagne and sets it down. “Now, come dance with me, my dear, if you’d grant an old man the pleasure.”

“Old man,” Hermione scoffs. “You’re only a few years older than my husband, and still the most glamourous man in the room.”

Lucius smiles, because his vanity knows no bounds, and this is precisely the compliment for which he was fishing.

Finite Incantatem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, dear readers, we have reached the end. Thank you all so much for reading. Special thanks to those of you who have left kudos or encouraged me along with way with your lovely comments. 
> 
> I have three more stories in the works: a short epistolary comedy, a romcom that can't make up its mind whether it's a Dramione or a Lumione, and a dark and twisty marriage law story set in an AU sixth year with all the Voldemort-related nastiness that goes along with a Hogwarts-era story. That last one is NOT the kind I usually write, but it's sort of possessed me (rather like a Horcrux) and I'm 45,000 words in. Problem is, I can't post it till I think of a title. 
> 
> In the meantime, I'll keep posting Present Imperfect as I revise it, and after that, Future Imperfect, the last in the trilogy that began with Past Imperfect. 
> 
> xo,
> 
> Vitellia


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